


Something Wicked

by Accidentallytechohazardous



Series: Witch AU [5]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bullying, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, M/M, Physical Abuse, Slow Burn, Witch AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 68,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9867242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidentallytechohazardous/pseuds/Accidentallytechohazardous
Summary: This is the story of Izuru Kira, the boy who believed in fairy tales. For a while, he thought his life was going to become one.





	1. Chapter 1

If Izuru had to retrace his footsteps, chase the kite tails all the way back to where the entire mess of his story began, cathedrals and gods and Witchcraft and all that nonsense, he would absolutely have to say it went all the way back to the fairytale playground at the end of the block.

He wouldn’t actually say that, because that would sound dumb. But he’d know it was the truth.

The park was on the way from his school to his house, you see. The playground had one of those big plastic playhouses with a climbing wall, and a slide all painted up to look like you were slipping out of a big, green dragon’s mouth. During the winter months snow piled up on the roof and frost made the colorful metal look glassy gray, it looked like an abandoned castle.

Izuru was walking home from school by himself alone. Not a single kid was on the sidewalk because it was still school hours and Izuru had been sent home early. He hadn’t feeling well, (although frankly the nature of his ailment may have been exaggerated) and when he blinked his big, blue eyes up at the nurse and asked, in a voice that all adults associated with angels, if he could please go home and lie down, the door might as well have opened up for him on the spot.

It’s not that Izuru doesn’t like school. Just the opposite, really. He does well in all his classes. Teachers adore him. He doesn’t particularly mind the other students. It’s only that sometimes it gets to be a little overwhelming for him. Especially during Halloween season, and kids start to tell ghost stories in the schoolyard or during class breaks. The old urban legends about one of the teachers being a werewolf, or the PTA board secretly being a covert meeting of Witches, or about the ghost of a girl who killed herself in the art room.

Okay, so maybe only that last one was actually scary to Izuru. Children have pretty vivid imaginations, and a bizarre attraction to the gruesome and disturbing. Such is the vivaciousness of youth.

And he likes to be alone sometimes. He likes how pretty it is outside, the nature noises of the street echoing down the long roads, blocked in with squat square houses and a canopy of orange-leaved trees that the weather hadn’t stripped entirely bare. Izuru can count each step home, measuring the pace of his foot step between each crack in the cement as he walks down the street and around the playground fence.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

Izuru stops in his tracks, flying up to balance precariously on his toes and wondering who could have possibly caught him. Well, ‘caught’ wouldn’t be the right word, since he got permission to leave early. But he got that permission through dishonest means, so maybe he wasn’t in the clear yet. Could you get reported to the nurse if you claimed to be sick but someone caught you looking too healthy?

“Be a little more careful, would you? Yer gonna fall and break your neck.”

“No, I’m gonna land on you and break my fall with your giant head!”

Curiosity needles Izuru’s brain instantly, even more so than the fear of being caught for some non-existent truancy charge. Those are definitely kids’ voices, but it’s the middle of the school day. Is someone else skipping class? He’s totally not skipping class.

High up on his tiptoes, Izuru edges around the tall wooden fence that rims the outside of the park. Surely, he can at least sneak by without being noticed, right? He reaches the entrance, the gap between fence posts where the sidewalk slips into a worn dirt path, and discreetly dives behind a plastic trash receptacle for added security when he hears a young, robust voice bark. “Okay, show me what you got.”

Employing all the stealth of an awkward young boy who goes to bed on time and and has never managed to successfully steal an extra cookie at dessert, Izuru edges around the trash can to catch a glimpse.

He finds two kids, which is pretty normal for a playground. They look to be about his age as well, which is also average. Izuru finds it a little puzzling that he doesn’t recognize these two from his class, however. Perhaps he’d just never noticed them before? Though Izuru has a feeling he’d recognize kids like these.

The first thing he sees is the gangly shape of a boy on the swingset, standing with his feet solidly planted on the seat of a swing. He has his fists wrapped around the chains, idly swinging back and forth in what looks like a frayed army coat and a man’s work boots.

The metal creaks under the boy’s weight, his shadow stretches over the playground’s technicolor astroturf, his back faces Izuru. And Izuru is sure he’s never seen this kid before in his life, because he’d certainly remember a bright shock of red hair like that, tied back and bouncing against the boy’s neck. “Don’t screw up now!”

He’s not talking to Izuru, but to girl who holds his gaze from her position at the top of the slide. She’s wrapped up in a blue sweater, the fall winds catching the floppy ears of her fleece bunny hat while she balances herself on the top rung, at least ten feet above the earth. The toes of her sneakers curl around the ladder.

“Shut up, jerkwad.” The girl hisses, through her concentration looks split from the way her eyes flicker down to the ground below. She seems to eye the space between her feet with caution, bending her knees tentatively. Izuru’s mouth hangs open like he’s trying to catch flies. She’s not really planning to-

The girl swings her arms in front of her body. Once. Twice. And at once pink tennis shoes go flying as she launches her small body into the air and Izuru feels his blood run cold.

With eyes wide with fear, he expects the arch. Instinctively, buried into his most basic and childish understanding of the world, he prepares himself for the girl’s horrific descent and the sickening smack of her body against the earth, but she never arrives there. She never makes it to the ground.

“Look, you’ve got it! You’re actually doing it!” Gone is the taunting tone in the boy’s voice, instead sounding genuinely elated and proud as he bounces on his swing. “That’s amazing!”

The girl shares the expression, dark blue eyes blown wide and arms splayed out for balance. The wind kicks through her dark bangs and stings her nose red as she floats over the playground, looking for all the world as if she had been captured by a freakishly powerful gust of wind.

When she hovers close enough to the swings that she is almost directly above the boy’s head, the girl reaches out to hook her ankle around the top bar of the swingset. Like anchoring an adrift balloon, she wraps her arms and legs around the metal bar, the girl’s pink lips slightly slack from the sheer effort of processing how she got from point A to point B. “Oh, wow…”

“Yeah, wow!” The boy cranes his neck to grin at her. He’s missing one of his front teeth, and his raspy voice has a bit of a whistle to accompany it. “Now you just gotta figure out how to get down by yerself.”

“Oh, you’re so funny.”

Izuru’s jaw hangs open, mind absolutely racing faster than he could possibly handle. Of course he is amazed- he’s only seen real, legitimate magic a handful of times in his young life, and never by another kid like himself.

At time same time… this is probably trespassing, right? If these two are out here doing magic during school hours, then it’s probably because they don’t want to be seen. That means that it’s a secret. And that means that Izuru is spying! And spying is even worse than skipping class!

A dry lump forms in Izuru’s throat. He should leave, and he knows he should leave, but at the same time he doesn’t want to. He wants to know where the girl learned to levitate herself like that, even if it means camping behind a trash can in the park. Izuru’s knees are already growing cold from where they’re pressed against the cement walkway. Truly, this is the greatest moral conundrum that he will ever have to face ever.

“Okay, stand near the bars and put your hands up.” The girl instructs the boy, inching her way towards the support beam of the swingset. “I’m gonna slide down and you catch me.”

“No way. You’re gonna kick me in the face like last time!”

“I didn’t kick you, it was an accident! Don’t put your face where my foot should be, dummy.”

Then again… maybe it’s not. Izuru’s brows furrow. These kids are definitely cool, with their strange abilities and casual truancy. But they’re just kids like he is, right? Maybe if he just goes and asks to be their friend, they’ll be nice.

Cautiously, Izuru raises himself to his feet. He can do this. He’s never been good at making friends before, or even starting conversations with students he’s been classmates with for his whole life, but anything can happen now. This is uncharted territory. Izuru looks down at his feet, takes a deep breath, and inches his way out from behind the trash receptacle.

A few things happen very quickly at once. Firstly, Izuru’s nose suddenly comes dangerously close to a broad chest much more solid-looking than his own. The red-haired boy smells like peppermint and campfire smoke, and he appears much larger up close than he did from further away. “Hey!”

Secondly, where Izuru was once vertical he suddenly finds himself stumbling backwards onto the sidewalk, the weight of his backpack leaving him prone as an overturned turtle. Legs are akimbo. It’s mortifying.

The boy doesn’t look any less tall and intimidating from the ground, his thick brows furrowed and mouth pressed into a tight scowl. His nose is scrunched up towards Izuru’s prone form like he’s observing something strange and perplexing. “What’re you lookin’ at?”

-

In his mere nine years of life, Izuru has only seen magic up close and personal a handful of times. Every local event, from festivals to fairs, manages to attract at least one rogue Witch, Wizard, or Psychic from the shadowy corners of the world to volunteer their wares. Izuru has a vivid memory of someone else’s mother clutching his hand, and the awe he experienced when watching a woman with diamond tattoos on her face levitate a bucket full of water. The way she conjured it out of its container, as if she was charming a snake. In less than a moment, the water exploded into flowers and the floating petals grazed Izuru’s cheeks as they descended to earth.

His other most vivid memory is when his grandmother hired a healing Witch to come visit his mother. Izuru can recall the way that the floorboards creaked under the shape of his massive man, folding his handbang under his arms in his tea-green suit as he shuffled through the foyer. The way he always smelled like spiced pastries, and gave Izuru a hard candy with a gentle, grandfatherly smile before ducking into Izuru’s mother’s room to check on how she was feeling. The Witch’s familiar, a round little owl, that sat on the frame of his mother’s bed for three months, keeping a diligent watch, before she peacefully passed.

He supposes there are some complicated feelings here he’ll eventually need to unpack.

None of those obscure glances of real Witchcraft has been… well, it would be selfish to say he wanted to be a part of it. Izuru shouldn’t say that he’s envious, of those grown-ups with their amazing powers and unique lives. They say that Witches live on the road, always adventuring from place to place. Others say they live in secret cities, built right under normal folks’ noses. That kind of incredible story just isn’t meant for people like Izuru.

Rukia and Renji’s eyes glimmer like sunlight on water, youthful and imaginative and full of life. They share special secret looks with each other, tight grins with mysteries locked behind their teeth. There’s dirt under their fingernails and Rukia still needs help tying her shoelaces. They are the first two friends that Izuru makes that cause him to feel like he is a part of something bigger than himself.

They are so strange and special, but it’s the things that all three of them have in common that stun Izuru.

-

“So what is it like?” Izuru asks, not for the first time, with his feet dangling off the climbing wall while Rukia hops over a wood chip moat and Renji attempts to scale the dragon slide backwards. “Being Witches, I mean. Is it true that you get invited to a special school for Witches and learn how to fly broomsticks and stuff? How tall do you have to be to ride a broomstick, is it like rollercoasters?”

From the top of the slide, Renji fixes him with a Look. The furrowed eyebrows and tip of his tongue poking through his gap teeth kind of look, but a glint of smugness in his eyes. Mischievous, Izuru will come to learn. “Y’don’t ride broomsticks. If Witches went flying around all the time, you’d be seeing ‘em in the sky everywhere!”

Izuru’s practical reasoning has to admit the logic of this statement, while his fantastical wonder is stuck on the concept of watching a whole fleet of people soar through the skies with avian elegance.

“Besides,” Rukia interjects with an air of importance. She rolls her eyes at Renji and this is most certainly a conversation they’ve had before. “Renji and me aren’t real Witches yet. You can’t be a Witch ‘till you’re a grown-up and they teach you how to do real spells and stuff.”

“Cool…” Izuru’s heart flutters in admiration. If Renji and Rukia aren’t even real Witches now, imagine how powerful they’ll be when they’re adults. “My nanna said she’d teach me how to paint with oils when I get older. But I only get to use water colors right now.”

Renji hardly pauses from his precarious journey, which appears to be seeing how long he can stand on top of the slide before slipping off the edge. “You can paint?”

This is how the majority of their conversations go. And while Izuru can’t skip out of class every day to go hang out with his friends, that doesn’t mean they can’t compromise.

Renji and Rukia seem to appear on the playground much more frequently. In the mornings on weekends, when most kids are still waking up and turning on cartoons. Or in the blue afternoons right before the day transfers into evenings. Almost always when nobody else is around. Izuru is a smart kid, and he knows a pattern when he sees one.

One frigid and white morning, Izuru is there at the park first. He left his house with a breakfast bar in his hoodie pocket and his bedhead still fluffed and disorderly, dragging his sneakers through the wet wood chips and seating himself on the edge of the plastic castle. It’s the first time that he’s been at the playground before them.

Izuru doesn’t know where Renji and Rukia go when they’re not at the park. It has always failed to occur to him that they might have anywhere else to be- they’re like the rabbits scooting around corners of bushes or cats sitting on windowsills, never needing a reason to be or not be anywhere except for their own desires.

He pulls his knees up to his chest. It is suddenly apparent that in Izuru’s hurry to get out the door, he forgot to change out of his flannel pajamas and into more weather appropriate pants. Nanna will definitely harp on him when he gets home, warning Izuru that he needs to take good care of himself (Especially because she’s getting older herself, though that part goes unsaid). Who nags Renji and Rukia when they aren’t bundled up enough? Even though they’re always together, they don’t look enough alike to be siblings. Do they have their own parents at home taking care of them? Life is complicated when you’re nine.

So very absorbed in these thoughts, and not even especially good at being alert anyways, Izuru should have heard the inelegant stomping of boots climbing the castle stairs before a voice too close to his ear incredulously asked. “What’re you doing? You’re spacing out like a weirdo again, aren’t you?”

There’s an undignified squeak that bolts out of Izuru’s mouth, and Renji has to grab him by his shirt collar like a kitten to keep Izuru from topping over face first. Izuru twists his body around to give the other boy an indignant look, his hand over his heart ceremoniously. “R-Renji! Please stop sneaking up on me!”

Renji snorts through his nose, giving Izuru a wry kind of smile. With lips that are more often seen twisted into a petulant frown than not, and a stray smear of dirt on his nose, that expression might nearly seem mean-spirited. It isn’t reflected in his actions, though, and Izuru is pleased when Renji sits down next to him instead of continuing to loom over Izuru.

“Rukia’s not here yet. She’s laggin’ behind today at home.” Renji tells Izuru, as if reading his mind. Or, more likely, just assuming Izuru would want to know about this interruption in their usual routine. That does strike Izuru, however…

“At home?” Izuru echoes. ‘Home’, singular. As in not ‘Rukia’s home’.

“Yeah, one of our neighbors asked for her help with something.” Renji reports nonchalantly. He takes notice, obviously, of the way Izuru is rather blatantly tucked into a little ball of blond and flannel, his hands tucked under his knees for warmth. Brown eyes roll with exasperation, and Izuru’s hands are squeezed by Renji’s much bigger, sturdier fingers.

Shell-shocked, Izuru watches Renji bring Izuru’s hands up to his face, palms laid out an inch away from his lips. He inhales, chest and shoulders heaving, and then exhales, and from behind his teeth Renji breathes out a wisp of a glowing orange tail. It curls and hovers over Izuru’s skin like a newborn star, and a hot wave of air brushes over his frozen fingertips. The sensation is akin to lying on a hardwood floor in a spot of sunlight, or putting on a sweatshirt that just came out of the dryer.

“I- oh…” Izuru says, suddenly fumbling over his tongue and not sure why. He chalks it up to being mystified by yet another impressive display of the supernatural, even though the novelty has worn since he befriended Renji a while ago.

Renji’s grin is pure mischief, the orange glow beginning to fade from his chin and cheeks. “Pretty handy, right? That’s a new one. Remember, you can’t go blabbing about this. I’m not s’posed to be doing magic without someone older around.”

Izuru blinks, and the residual disappointment over not getting to see Rukia this morning is joined by a different series of emotions. “Do you wanna come over? My nanna makes pancakes.”

-

A brief word about Izuru’s home, as that has been the setting for the majority of Izuru’s childhood.

The house has always seemed pretty big, at least for Izuru. It’s also pretty old, by anyone’s measure and not just his own. According to Izuru’s grandmother, it predates most of the rest of the neighborhood, which explains why the house more aged and ornate than the surrounding suburbs on every side.

The ancientness of the house becomes more and more apparent every year, what with Izuru’s grandmother beginning to get too old to keep up with intense maintenance and Izuru having the opposite problem. They have a lady come in every month or so to scrub in places that Izuru can’t reach, but between those sessions he’s gotten used to finding streaks in the wallpaper and occasional cobwebs in the corner. That’s not to say that the house is unwelcome, of course — all it takes is lighting a fire in the fireplace and pulling back the curtains, and the place looks ship-shape again.

Izuru’s nanna is very much like the house itself; ancient, dignified, and sturdy. Almost impressively so, because when Izuru brings home a strange kid one chilled Saturday morning in a mismatched ensemble of a patched up jacket and stained workboots, all she displays is relief that Izuru is finally bringing over a friend.  

“It gets too quiet in this house. Izuru is so shy, I’d ask him why he wouldn’t invite the neighbors’ little ones over some time, but they’re all dull as posts. The poor dears.” She grouses, and scrapes more pancakes onto Renji’s plate before he can ask. Fumiko Kira’s glasses slip down her narrow nose. Her hair, once as golden as Izuru’s own but long faded to a pale yellow, escapes her tastefully plated hair in wisps and sticks to her brow from the heat of baking. “Help yourself, dear. Waste not, and all that.”

And while Izuru is used to her matronly sensibilities, Renji seems properly overwhelmed. His eyes can’t seem to stay in one place, flickering from the ever increasing stack of hotcakes, to the many accessories of a cheerfully occupied kitchen, to the antique family relics in the form of decorative plates and clocks posted onto the kitchen wall. “This place is huge.”

He says it like he’s a little intimidated, though it strikes Izuru as silly that a tough kid like Renji would be intimidated by anything at all. Let alone the inside of a boring old house. Still, he tries to empathize as he chews his way through an excessive amount of breakfast.

The metaphorical lightbulb appears over Izuru’s head, and suddenly he’s excited. Renji’s always impressing Izuru with his magic skills, maybe this is exactly how Izuru can return the favor. Now it is his turn to be the cool kid.

“This is nothing,” Izuru says, and he feels like there’s sunshine inside of him. “Do you want to see something cool?”

Once their plates have been set aside, Izuru leads Renji up the big staircase. He tries to see the house through these fresh eyes he’s borrowed, resoak every inch of the polished hand railings and the drag of his heels on the second floor carpet. There’s an unfamiliar sense of pride and adventure now that Izuru was unable to find all on his lonesome.

“This is the sitting room. We don’t use it much anymore because Nanna says climbing up stairs is for young people with nothing better to do than challenge their elders.”

“Why d’ya need a room for sitting.”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s for special sitting. Like you have guests over and sit in the special chairs, and you have tea while talking about music and the weather and the economy.”

The real event, in Izuru’s humble opinion, is the second door on the right on the second floor, which he pulls open and is careful to mind the touchy lock. This room doesn’t feel even a little bit like it’s ghostly or abandoned, because someone is in it every day. That person is Izuru. “This is my favorite place.”

Shizuka and Kagekiyo Kira weren’t just creative. They were brilliant. And this room, the gem of their family home and cite for many of Izuru’s curious pursuits, proves that more than anything.

Wall to wall, there are books of all kinds. Faded paperbacks and pristine hardcovers jammed together, organized painstakingly by genre, subject and title with prideful and loving accuracy. The only exception to this rule are the shelves closest to ground level, which has been packed with children’s books of varying age range and interest since Izuru was born, and probably even long before then.

“Check this out.” Izuru slides out a little stepstool from the corner of the room and sets it up against a shelf, Renji dogging his heels.

He retrieves from the shelf a slender little volume, with coarse and uneven pages poking out from around the dark maroon covers. Izuru drops his butt down on the step stool and scoots to the edge, leaving Renji enough room to sit down beside him so he can open the book up across both their laps.

Izuru opens the book to a random page, sheets of paper sliding apart to finally open to a detailed pencil portrait of a hippogriff. Every free inch of the parchment is scrawled in notes from a graceful but cramped hand, the majority of the attention going to the incredibly life-like depiction of the creature’s avian head, set atop a powerful feline body. The creature stands in profile, as if regarding some newcomer on its territory from very far away.

“Is that really what they look like?” Renji asks, brows furrowed. Izuru can’t exactly blame him, since an animal like this looks pretty… mismatched to someone who has never seen it before.

“Of course!” Izuru answers smartly. He admires the pen lines, the drag of a swift and clever hand over the paper. It gives him a warm and familiar sensation. Almost cozy. “My dad drew this. He researched rare animals. He wrote a lot of books about them. My mom wrote books, too, only they’re poetry books instead of ones about science and stuff.”

Normally, there’s a particular pattern or conversation that follows these kinds of statements. Izuru mentioning his mother and father typically prompts people to ask where they are, and that leaves Izuru with the stressful task of arranging his thoughts and feelings.

For a minute, Izuru thinks Renji might actually skip over that conversation. He seems casually interested in the book, more engrossed in what Izuru is saying, but he does actually perk up and ask. “‘Wrote’? She doesn’t anymore.”

“Yeah. Uh, my parents aren’t around anymore.” Izuru says, employing the cleanest kind of cut-off he can manage, which usually succeeds in stopping the conversation cold in its tracks. Eyes, at first lit with excitement and fondness, now feel heavy and fall off the pages of the book. He doesn’t wanna talk about it.

Instead, Izuru turns back to Renji. “What about you? Do you live with your mom and dad?”

“Nope.” That wry smirk is back on Renji’s lips, indecipherably proud. “Don’t have parents.”

“Yes, you do. Everyone has parents.” Or. Had. But let’s not get technical.

“Not me.” Renji lets his half of the book lay out flat over his knees, stretching his arms up and folded them behind his head. Izuru notices once again how much taller and all around bigger Renji is than himself, when Renji spreads himself out he dwarfs Izuru in comparison. “Witches don’t have parents. I grew up in my Coven an’ was raised by the grown-ups there.”

The gears churn in Izuru’s mind, and he tries to unbury what little obscure information on the occult that he can salvage. “Your ‘Coven’?” Something about that sounds familiar. “You mean, like… a group of Witches that meet up to do magic.”

“Well, kinda.” Renji shrugs, looking a little more excited to be back in his field of expertise. Children do love to discuss themselves. “Except it’s a group of Witches who live together, not just who do magic together. And it’s totally secret and awesome, and there’s no school. Uh, well some adults still give you lessons an’ you have to study hard and stuff, so it’s not, like, super great.”

Not a single thing that comes out of Renji’s mouth could make Izuru feel any less elated. He feels his stomach drop like he’s at the top of a big roller coaster, looking down the tracks at the big old world, and his face lights up. A whole town of people like Renji? “Wow…”

“Yeah, me an’ Rukia live there.” Renji says, and by the end of that sentence he seems to notice Izuru’s awestruck expression. The red haired boy turns a little bit pink around his cheeks, and his eyes dark away. “We’re not usually s’posed to bring anybody who’s not magic… But maybe you can check it out one day when you’re grown.”

Words absolutely fail Izuru. All except for a breathless, “Oh… yeah?”

Somewhere out there, there’s an entire town full of special people like Renji and Rukia. And Izuru might get to meet them some day! Izuru’s heart hammers against his chest, a fluttering creature on four wings.

In the middle of Izuru’s golden glow, he hears the sudden creaking of stairs outside being climbed. Brows furrowing, he grabs each cover of his father’s nature journal and lifts them closed. Renji asks, “Izuru?”

He knows it can’t be his grandmother coming up the stairs, on account of the speed and definitive lack of bones cracking. And that definitely isn’t Nanna’s voice when someone breathlessly wails, “Renji!”

Behind Izuru, Renji mutters something that sounds like, “Shoot.” But less appropriate for his age.

The door swings open to reveal a girl, one who is at least a good handful of years older than Izuru and Renji. Maybe as old as fifteen. She looks properly harassed, with her close-cropped snow white hair sticking up at all ends and a flushed look on her brown face, bent over at the waist and hyperventilating from bolting up the stairs. As she steadies her labored breathing, Izuru can see a black cord hanging around her neck. An intricate network of feathers and stones bang against her broad chest.

“I’ve been looking–” she wheezes, and looks at Renji from the doorway with an expression that looks half-weepy, half-accusatory– “everywhere for you! You can’t just– just disappear like that! What if you fell into a– into a ditch somewhere? Or a bog? Or a ditch in a bog?”

“A dog,” Renji summarizes wisely, which forces Izuru to snort a little. The girl narrows her sky blue eyes at Renji and drags herself up to her full height — which, incidentally, is pretty high.

“This is serious, Renji! It’s bad enough that you and Rukia are always wandering off, but now you’re bothering these poor people inside their own home. Do you have any idea how rude that is?”

This does appear to suitably cow Renji, who shrugs his shoulders up to his ears and fixes a glare to the floor. Izuru feels his stomach drop through the floor.

“I-I’m sorry, Miss!” Izuru stands up, holding the journal to his chest and making a stupendous effort to keep his voice from trembling. “I invited Renji over. Please don’t get him in trouble.”

This, for whatever reason, is vexing to the girl. She fixes Izuru with this peculiar expression of surprise. Should it really be so strange that a boy would invite someone his own age over to his house? “You invited him?”

Finally, there comes the patient creaking that signals Izuru’s grandmother’s ascent. Despite the difference in age and posture between them, she’s quite small beside the gangly teenaged girl. Suitably belayed, she says, “Young man, I believe your… sister? She’s here to see you.”

“Your sister?” Izuru turns towards Renji, who makes a grumpy face back in turn.

“Isane’s not my sister.”

The teenaged girl — now identified as Isane — turns to Izuru’s nanna and bows her head and shoulders, hands clasped together meekly. “I am so, so sorry, ma’am, for coming into your home so rudely! I was the one who was supposed to be looking after Renji. And I apologize for any trouble that we may have caused you.”

“There… really has been no trouble to apologize for,” Nanna tells her, in a tone that Izuru imagines is a polite old lady way of saying Calm down, you strange, strange girl.

Renji sinks into his seat on the stool, looking dejected. The residual feeling of guilt is still tight around Izuru’s stomach. Apparently even though Renji has no parents, there are still rules he needs to follow, and Izuru thinks he might have broken one.

Fumiko Kira pushes her bifocals up her narrow nose. Her blue eyes, much like her yellow hair, is a pale reflection of Izuru’s own. Also of Izuru’s mother. She addresses Isane with a kind of slow patience that comes with age. “Miss, if I may ask you– do you or this young man have family in this neighborhood?”

Isane instantly tenses up, her shoulders gone rigid. Though she’s clearly much older than Izuru, she’s very plainly a child under Fumiko’s heavy gaze. In her palm, Isane twists her fingers. “Um, yes and no. We don’t live in the neighborhood, but our… family just moved in close by.”

The way she says it, the tremble in her voice- it’s not exactly a lie, but it’s clearly not a truth, either. Isane’s mind seems to race, solving a complicated puzzle as heat gathers in her cheeks. “If you want to speak to an adult, I can put you in touch with–”

Fumiko raises her slender hand in dismissal, a polite smile on her thin lips. “Then that’s all well and good.” Her rounded shoulders turn away from the door as she begins making her slow passage down the hall. “Izuru’s friend is welcome to visit him in my home. I don’t need to know anything else.”

Isane’s shoulders slump down as she exhales. Relief fills up Izuru, even as there’s also something uneasy resting inside the pit of him. Something about his grandmother’s response doesn’t settle quite right.

But– the important thing is that he gets to see Renji again. The two boys share wild and secretive grins. Isane appraises them in a new light, her hands set on her hips and an eyebrow cocked.

“Alright, you’re in luck this time,” Isane admits. As she shrugs her shoulders, the odd netting of a necklace she wears bounces against her chest. Izuru suddenly puts together that she, too, must be like Renji. Maybe that necklace is some kind of charm, even. “But you really need to stop wandering off without telling anyone, Renji. Now that you’ve got Mrs. Kira’s permission, there’s no excuse for you to not be honest.”

Renji slumps down from the stool, and returns to giving the floor a begrudging glare. “Fine…”

Izuru looks at Isane with a new sense of gratitude and appreciation. Now he’s one step closer to discovering the amazing world of Witches.

-

Some individuals, when they look back through the years, will find that there’s a particular sort of dark spot in their childhood memories. A turning point, between being young and innocent and being a little more wary of the world. These spots aren’t always bad things, per say. Maybe they were accidents, or important lessons.

But they mean something different to each person, and the lessons they teach can be radically different.

Izuru is more than happy to keep his friendship with Renji and Rukia to himself. They’re like his own little secret, something special for him and him alone. And sure, at times he has been curious as to why they spend so much time in his neighborhood and don’t have any other friends from Izuru’s class, but he chalks it up to there being plenty of people like Isane in their Witch town. Being clever and charismatic as they are, Renji and Rukia probably have more magical friends than they know what to do with.

As a consequence, Izuru’s interest in his classmates predictably crumbles. How many friends, after all, does a boy really need? Izuru’s classmates all think he’s a spaced-out oddball, anyways, so it’s no loss.

After a while, however, Izuru thinks the other kids’ are starting to get suspicious.

“Do you think there are really Witches around this town?”

Izuru overhears someone whisper this during lunch, a boy in the seat two rows ahead leaving towards his neighbor’s desk. “Isn’t that wild? I bet they showed up cuz’ Aizen is running for city council an’ they wanna put a bunch of curses on his supporters or something.”

“No way, you actually believe that junk?” A girl answers back. “My dad always said that Witches aren’t even really magic, anyways. It’s all tricks and smoke and mirrors. The only people who can do real miracles are the priests.”

“I bet that’s exactly what they want you t’ believe.” A boy creeps up and grabs the back of the girl’s chair, shaking it violently despite her protests. “That’s how the Witches fool you before they curse on you– turn you into a slimey frog or something.”

“That’s not funny!”

Izuru stares back down at his lunch with the casual intensity befitting a loner who desperately doesn’t want to be noticed.

Outside, fall has long since passed into winter. The festive paper snowflakes suspended from the ceilings match the growing sheets of white outside. As snow builds up in blankets on the school grounds, so does the agitation of every young person to be outside and explore.

It’s seasonable enough for Izuru to be bundled up to the point of claustrophobia. He’s had a pretty dramatic growth spurt from last year, so his sheepskin boots pinch around the toes. The frigid air captures his breath and turns it white, and it reminds Izuru of the trick Renji showed him when he warmed his hands. That memory lifts his spirits, even as he nearly falls on his face slipping on an icy patch in the sidewalk.

As Izuru regains his balance and brushes snow off of his pants, he notices a spot of perfect black standing out a little down the road, standing out against the snowy white. Even from the back, he recognizes the bounce of that black hair against slight shoulders, and the blue of that winter coat with bunny patches sewn onto the pockets. Rukia forgot her hat at home, and as much as Izuru frets for her health out in the winter cold, he has to admit that her hair looks so pretty with snowflakes on her crown.

“Hey!” Izuru recovers himself, but the wind carries his voice away and Rukia is too far away to hear him. No problem, though– they’re already close to the park, she must be either going to or from the playground to meet with Renji, and Izuru can catch up with them on the way.

He watches Rukia cross the road and turn around a corner on the street, heading in the direction of the footpath that denotes the longer, more scenic route through the park. Something prickly and heavy lands in Izuru’s throat, however, when he sees a handful of his classmates come up and cross the same street.

Four boys, at least one of whom Izuru recognizes from his class. The other three might be from different rooms, or even a different middle school. The huddle around each other conspiratorially, crossing the street without noticing Izuru and turning down the same corner that he had seen Rukia flit around.

Izuru’s immediate thought is to get Renji, and he doesn’t automatically realize why he thinks that. After all, they’re just kids. How much harm could they really do? This should be up to an adult, or better yet, Izuru can let Rukia handle herself and mind his own business.

He’s bolting down the street, heels slipping and skidding on the sidewalk as he turns the corner without slowing.

The footpath trails away from the neighborhood a little bit. Becomes more heavily wooded, and very slightly the trimmed fur hedges and barren oak trees with tire swings hanging from the low branches turn into thin bars of white, frostbitten bark. The path gently melts into a sloping incline downwards, and Izuru can hear the gentle rush of a creek not quite frozen over. The woods are so beautiful this time of year, perhaps because nobody really comes down the nature trail in the winter. But Izuru isn’t here to appreciate the scenery.

Where are they? Between the snow in his face and the rows of trees casting long shadows over the road, Izuru can’t see anybody near by. He has to keep running blindly down the winding path and hope he’s still going in the right direction. With one full breath, Izuru shouts, “Rukia!” No response.

Until he hears someone scream, coming from off the trail and into the sparse woods. Izuru ducks into the trees, hopping over roots and stones and running towards the sound of the commotion and the increasing babble of water. The ground angles downwards underneath him.

He comes to a sudden halt, snow spraying from under his feet. He sees Rukia, facing the four boys. Izuru has always considered Rukia slight for her age, but usually her well of personality makes her so much bigger in his mind. Now, surrounded by boys who have to be at least a year older than her, her charisma doesn’t seem as huge and imposing.

That being said, it is odd to see one of the boys sitting on the ground, eyes wild and looking for all the world like he was just pushed over by someone who was not only a head shorter than him, but also is standing four feet away. Izuru realizes he must have been the one who screamed.

“Did you see that?” one of the other kids asks, incredulous and angry. “She totally pushed him!”

“How? She didn’t even touch him.”

“What a freak…”

The boy on the ground wriggles, but his movement seems slow and jerky like he’s being held down by something. Snow covers his pants and his coat. “H-hey…” No, not held down. Stuck. “What did you do?”

Izuru then notices the sunlight glaring all around Rukia, like a circle of fire. There’s a thick ring of ice that had crawled its way from the creek and coated the snowy earth between Rukia and the fallen boy. That isn’t snow on his arms and legs as much as perfect ice freezing him in place. Rukia’s arm is extended, pink fingers reaching towards the boy, and Izuru can imagine how easy it must have been for her, the impulsive, instinctual decision to use her surroundings as her defense when she got scared.

“I’m stuck! She trapped me!”

“It was witchcraft! She really is a Witch!”

“She’s a freak is what she is– An evil freak!”

Mouth hanging open and eyes a million miles away, Rukia lowers her arm slowly. Izuru can only imagine how overwhelming it is for her to be put in this situation. He’s never see her use her powers to hurt anyone or anything, not even accidentally. Her breath drifts away from her in rapid, powerful puffs of white clouds, brows knit.

Driven by an urge that is definitely not self-preservational, Izuru nearly trips and stumbles right into the fray, putting himself between Rukia and the boys. “Hey! Guys!” There’s panic in him, and it makes his voice rise in a way that doesn’t sound very brave or cool at all. “Leave her alone, okay? You don’t have to do anything.”

Nobody seems terribly impressed by his arrival. The boy closest says, “Aren’t you Kira from class A-2?”

“Figures, the weirdo is friends with the freak.”

It hurts to hear that, more than Izuru would like to admit. Increasingly, he’s found himself feeling like he’s different from his peers, but he’s never been on the directly receiving end of their cruelty before. It stings in a heavy way, but he swallows to clear his throat regardless. “P-please just leave…”

The effect is about what Izuru should have expected. The boy on the ground succeeds in breaking off the ice on his limbs and the group reforms in full, Izuru hardly has time to blink before one of them is roughly shoving him down and his head makes jarring contact with the ground. “Mind your own business.”

Through a faceful of snow, Izuru hears Rukia shout for him. “Kira, are you okay?” He looks up to see two of the boys who were approaching Rukia trip face-first with the wiry fingers of tree roots summoned through the frozen earth and wrapped around their feet.

She’s amazing, and powerful, but three bursts of magic is a lot for Rukia to deal out all at once under these conditions. She tries to back away, creating a bridge out of ice over the creek so she can escape, but the biggest of the kids succeeds in grabbing her. “You shoulda’ just kept your freaky magic out of our town.”

“Leggo!” Rukia screams and kicks her legs high into the air. It takes two of the boys to hold her, and by this point the bullies begin to realize this may be more than they originally bargained for.

“Whatta’ we do with her?” One asks, narrowly avoiding Rukia’s fist clocking him in the teeth.

The other tries to pin her fists behind her back. “Idiot, what are you always supposed to do with Witches? You burn them or drown them!”

Instantly, Izuru is trying to pull himself to his feet, but something doesn’t feel right. A spell of dizziness, a sharp stinging where he hit his head. He glances down and sees read snow, puts a glove to the side of his head and it comes away wet. Nausea churns inside his stomach.

But he has bigger things to be concerned about — Izuru looks back up, and a spike of cold fear goes through him to see two of the kids dragging a still thrashing and shrieking Rukia dangerously close to the icy creek. He sees her face, red with fury and hate, but also wide-eyed with fear. He sees it, and then Izuru sees it disappear with a white, frothy splash as the boys pin her down underneath the frigid water.

Blood loss and exposure be damn, adrenaline pushes Izuru back onto his feet. He hurtles his slight body at one of the boys holding Rukia down, who happens to be someone larger than himself, with all the weight behind his bony frame. He succeeds at sending them both careening into the water themselves. The shock of the winter water sets in faster than Izuru’s brain can even process, and it just feels like he’s hurting all over and under his skin.

With only one force to push her down, that’s all Rukia needs. Izuru hears another shriek. Rukia, her skin gleaming and gray and pale. Her clothes are pasted to her body. Her shoulders are heaving and eyes gone dark like a beady animal’s. Her black and stringy hair hanging over her face like a monster in a movie, drags her assailant down with a splash and rises over Izuru with a streak of red running down her lips and round chin. Izuru hears someone wail from a mouthful of water. “Shit! This psycho bit me!”

“This is getting too weird for me. I’m going home!”

Izuru pulls himself out of the creek, staggering back onto land and feeling ice water fill up his boots. Arms wrapped around his body, watching the disgusted, snarling faces of his peers turn as they run and begin to flee back up the incline, there’s a sense of being exposed that has nothing to do with his injury or freezing to the bone.

“Rukia!” Izuru rushes to the girl, wrapping his hands around her shoulders and helping her up to her feet. Rukia shivers violently as she presses herself against Izuru’s equally damp and cold body. Izuru hears his voice like it belongs to somebody else, frantically trying to soothe the way that a nurturing adult would. Like his mother. “You’re okay, you’re okay. Shh, it’s okay…”

She is so small and fragile in his arms. So gentle Izuru can’t help but be furious on her behalf, and it’s a kind of emotion he hasn’t felt in quite this way before. He can’t even process what would provoke those assholes to pick on someone so clever and sweet and good.

“You’re okay…”

Rukia’s face rises, turning upwards from Izuru’s chest. Water drips down her gray face as rain rolls down windshields, hair flattened against her skin. She looks not up at him, but through Izuru. Rukia’s lips are twisted into an intense, painful frown wrapped around gritted teeth. Her eyes are as white as two perfect pearls.

Izuru’s fingers tingle where they’re touching Rukia, and he doesn’t believe it’s an early sign of hypothermia. A rancid odor fills his nose and makes his eyes water, some sulphuric concoction of rotten eggs and ammonia.

Rukia’s voice doesn’t sound like Rukia. It sounds more like she’s speaking underwater, distorted and warped. “They hurt you…”

“It’s okay.” Izuru puts his face into Rukia’s soaked hair. She seems to grow colder and colder. Her hair feels hard like her body is freezing over.

“I’ll make them pay…”

“It’s okay.” Izuru’s voice wavers, and he doesn’t know what to do. Except to stand here like this and let the winter take their shivering bodies, and Izuru will pass from this world the same way his mother did- sick and weak and fading.

A familiar voice cuts into Izuru’s head, crashing like a bat through a window. And in that moment, Izuru isn’t sure whether he’s relieved or terrified. Either way, it stops his heart in his chest. “Izuru?”

And there, between the black bars of the naked trees, sliding down the slick side of the incline with his grown-up boots, is Renji. He looks a little bedraggled, like maybe he got into a scuffle with a shrub on the way over. Not that Izuru has much room to talk on that regard. Dark and piercing eyes widen under heavy, furrowing brows. “Rukia?”

Izuru breathes a shuddering breath that burns his lungs on the way out. He wants to explain absolutely everything, to look at Renji who is bigger and stronger and will make everything okay. Renji crushes the ice and snow under his body as he bounds forwards, and absorbing the wound on Izuru’s head first with an open-mouthed expression of shock.

Then his attention goes to Rukia, and Renji all but yanks her out of Izuru’s arms and to himself. He puts his hands on either side of her head and points her face up towards her own, watching her shake. Finally, he coaxes Rukia to look up at him, the blood on her lips already freezing. Her eyes still as white as milk. Rukia shakes, not with the cold but with rage, and white like frost seems to spread from her white eyes over her face as it would crawl over stone.

“What happened?” Renji asks, and at once the air seems to grow not only warmer but also darker. Not staggeringly so, but just barely noticeable. Like someone had blotted out the sun by putting a lid over the forest and set it over a meager flame. Gingerly, feeling returns to Izuru’s arms and legs. “Tell me who did this.”

Rukia doesn’t give him an answer, and Izuru can’t say if it’s because she won’t or because she can’t. Izuru feels the itchy discomfort of blood drying on his skin and in his hair. He’s woozy and exhausted, and he wants to go home, curl up under a blanket and maybe cry.

“Renji,” He starts, and Renji’s face snaps to Izuru with his eyes flashing dangerously. Izuru feels tears he hadn’t realized he had been holding back start to rise. “We– we need to get her inside somewhere. It’s cold out here, she’ll get sick.” As will he, definitely.

Renji seems to consider this. But he doesn’t look like he’s anywhere near calming down. “Fine.”

He bends down to wrap his arms around the back of Rukia’s knees and hoists her up onto his shoulder, holding her like a limp sack of potatoes. Rukia wraps her arms around Renji’s neck, and he turns to begin the long march back out of the forest.

Renji makes one full step before stopping, turning back to look at Izuru from other Rukia’s back. At this point, Izuru realizes he hasn’t even moved yet. His feet feel frozen to the ground as if by one of Rukia’s spells. With an expression that denotes only broiling frustration, Renji marches to Izuru and uses the one arm not being used to hold Rukia to find Izuru’s hand. Renji’s fist squeezes Izuru’s palm, bare and unnaturally hot to the touch. Izuru feels himself melt, like his hand is melding into Renji’s hand. And at once, Renji is dragging him back up the snowy terrain, searching for shelter.

-

“What on Earth happened to you?”

In his experience, Izuru has found that adults tend to ask this question without really expecting an answer. Never is that more clear than now, since before he can try to answer, Izuru’s grandmother is hushing him. “Nevermind, just get inside quickly! You three will catch your death out there!”

Izuru, Rukia and Renji are shuffled inside, and the first wave of relief that Izuru has felt all day washes over him when he sees the fireplace in the living room is already lit. Instantly he curls up on the floor in front of it, in the orange glow, and lets the warmth seep into his body.

At that point, Nanna descends upon the three children with an armful of warm towels. She fusses over a cranky but thankfully quiet Renji, who doesn’t demand much of her attention anyways just now. She frets more over Rukia, rubbing a towel into her hair and scraping away the blood on her face. “Oh, poor baby! Let’s get you cleaned up. I have some old things upstairs you can change into.” Gradually, the color returns to Rukia’s face.

When she moves onto Izuru, he gets the once over and his grandmother looks like she has been struck with a heart attack. “Good heavens, that poor little head…” She presses the towel to his scalp, tender and firm, and moves his hand to keep it there. With no small amount of effort, Fumiko straightens herself back up and wraps her hand around Rukia’s. “Okay, angel, let’s get you out of those wet clothes. Izuru, I’ll bring you down some jammies and bandages and antiseptic while she’s busy.”

With that, she leads Rukia upstairs. And while Izuru knows Rukia isn’t the most compliant kid around strangers, she’s clearly too exhausted and too stressed to do much aside from slump in the direction of where ever Nanna takes her.

That leaves Izuru still leaking a cold puddle into the floor in front of the fireplace. Renji is sitting next to him, knees pulled into his chest, eyes fixed on the fireplace. Izuru kind of wants to ask him what’s on his mind. He also kind of wants to shrink into his towel and never come out again.

He tries to speak three times before he finally says, “‘M sorry.”

Renji shakes his head, not looking at Izuru. “You didn’t do nothin’.”

“I know. I’m sorry, anyways.” Izuru’s eyes bore into the hardwood floor. He hasn’t felt this helpless since, well, since his mother’s funeral. Many people, mostly distant family members and friends of his parents, telling them they’re sorry and to buck up, that things will get better. Almost all of them said that before Izuru never saw them again.

He feels like he’s one of those mourners right now. With nothing to offer Renji but his black-suited presence and empty words.

“Those kids were picking on Rukia because she was a Witch. I tried to help, I– I really did. I was… just too late.”

“I figured. Both’a those things.”

Izuru breathes, and his chest feels full of rocks. “Is it… is it always like this.” He dares a sideways glance at Renji.

Renji shakes his head. His face is lit up amber in the firelight. “No, never like this before. The grown-ups are always tellin’ us it could happen if we aren’t careful. Guess we just got unlucky.” He looks sideways to meet Izuru’s eyes. And in that moment he doesn’t look big or intimidating or like the bully he pretends to be. He looks just like any other kid, only with a world of pressure placed on his shoulders. Weighing him down. Forced to stand against the weight — for Rukia’s sake, if for no other reason.

Renji blinks, and the severity of his usual scowls and surliness are absent on a youthful and shockingly innocent face. “Izuru, why’re you crying?”

Izuru puts his hand to his face, where the dam has finally broke and tears are rolling down his cheeks. He’s so foolish, to cry after the damage is already done. He hides his face in his blanket. “I don’t know. I’m sorry–” He loses his words in hiccups. Izuru doesn’t calm down until he feels a hand reach over and squeeze his shoulder.

“Hey. Don’t cry,” Renji says, maybe not quite as comforting as he is a little fearful of Izuru’s sudden overwhelming emotions. He laughs a bit, terribly awkward. “I’m no good with crying.”

“Sorry.” Izuru shudders and dries his eyes on his towel. Thankfully, he has no time to dwell on his embarrassing windfall of feelings, as soon enough the slow, telltale shuffling of Nanna creaks down the stairs.

She appears, looking tired but determined. Izuru has no doubt this reminds her of days as a nurse, running after patients and keeping doctors in line before she eventually surpassed them. Izuru’s nanna has a bundle in her arms that Izuru immediately realizes is his flannel dinosaur pajamas, and though normally he’d be horrified for Renji to see he’d ever wear such things he now couldn’t be happier to see them.

Rukia is at Nanna’s hip. She’s wearing a button-up blouse as dress, and Izuru recognizes it as his mother’s. Her hair stands up funny on one side like Nanna tried to run a comb through it, but aside from that Rukia looks much healthier. She has the house’s first aid kit weighing down her slender arms, which she offers to Izuru’s nanna.

“Come, Izuru. Let’s get that banged-up head looked at.”

Izuru pulls his towel up around his ears, more than a little relieved to retreat from the scene after Renji had seen him cry. Still, when he’s hopping onto the bathroom counter so that Nanna can dab stinging antiseptic and tut while she places band-aids on his wound (“Don’t squirm so much, dear boy. It’s only a scrape.”) he feels a strange sense of… contentment.

He saved Rukia. Maybe not exactly successfully, and involving no small amount of Rukia saving herself and also him. So perhaps it’s more fair to say they saved each other. Renji comforted Izuru, told him not to cry when he was scared and miserable and sad. They’re, like… real friends. Like a team, even.

Izuru smiles at his feet while Nanna whisks him to the kitchen to help her prepare four mugs of hot cocoa. She sighs heavily. “I don’t suppose either of your friends have a home phone number.”

-

The first day after the weekend is not a relaxing one. Izuru spends the walk to school with a knot of dread in his stomach, wondering if today is the day he has to employ another fit of talented acting to make a quick escape.

Izuru darts to his desk as soon as he enters the room, head down. His hand rises self-consciously to brush his bangs in front of his bandage, and he hopes that for once his invisibility to the majority of his peers will be a help instead of a hindrance. If worse comes to worse, he can say it was a pimple and be years ahead of the puberty curve.

To his surprise, nothing remarkable happens. Izuru’s eyes stay fixed on the desk, waiting for someone to barge over to him and teach him a lesson with very physical learning aids, but students just filter into the room as usual. The teacher takes her place at the front of the class and begins roll call as usual. It’s almost all too normal until–

“One absence today?” The teacher puts a tick mark on the attendance sheet. Izuru’s head snaps up and the one empty seat at the front of the room seems to draw his attention in like a yawning black hole. Surely, that had to be one of the boys who roughed up him and Rukia. So where is he now?

For the rest of the class period, Izuru finds himself more preoccupied chewing up the end of his pencil than paying attention to his times tables.

There’s a reasonable explanation, of course. Anyone can tell you it’s not strange for kids to be home from school once in awhile, especially during this cold season. Maybe the student had a doctor’s appointment, a family emergency, anything.

But also, maybe not.

Renji and Rukia are powerful, but they’re not powerful enough to do any serious damage, right? The only time Izuru has even seen Rukia use her powers against a person was that one instance, and that was in self-defense. They’re good people.

No matter how far away and frightening Rukia appeared to be, with her eyes glazed over and looking so otherworldly. Not even with Renji’s anger and spite as he stared into the fireplace, an uncharacteristic calm before a storm.

The class bell rings just in time for Izuru to berate himself- how could he think so poorly of these good friends of him? People who helped him? Who were attacked by Izuru’s own classmate and still stood by him. There’s no need for Izuru to be worried or suspicious.

But as kids begin to file to their bags to get out their lunches, Izuru’s eyes flit to the open classroom door where his teacher quietly excused herself to take a ‘special break’ and smoke in the teacher's’ lounge. After all, it couldn’t hurt…

Izuru slips out into the hall about as quietly as he can manage, seeing his teacher begin to make strides down to the faculty room. Izuru is very careful to responsibly walk, not run, to catch up with her. “Um, excuse me, ma’am!”

The expression she gives him is obvious curiosity. Izuru is often beloved by his teachers, mostly because he spends most of the class period being quiet and attentive and adorable. On the other hand, they don’t seem terribly invested in what he has to say, since he rarely makes waves. She looks down at him politely. “Kira, you don’t want to miss your lunch break.”

“Um, the one student who was absent today.” Izuru tries to wrack his memories for a name to put to the face. He can’t force much to come up, aside from getting pushed into the snow and Rukia’s flashing, furious eyes. “Viga…”

The teacher’s face relaxes. “Viga’s mother called this morning to let me know he would be absent. He’s home with the flu today. You should remember to stay healthy, Kira, there’s a bug going around.”

Right. Flu. That makes sense. Izuru nods. The teacher smiles gently, mistaking Izuru’s agreement for relief. “It’s kind of you to be worried on his behalf, but don’t worry so much. He’ll be back in class before you know it.”

Well, hopefully not too soon to still be mad, anyway.

She turns around and continues her march to the faculty room, and Izuru is left to decipher the news. Anybody could get the flu, especially if they were stomping around in the creek in the middle of winter. It’s a miracle that Izuru isn’t sick as a dog, himself!

Besides, it’s not like Renji or Rukia could have had anything to do with that.

-

The fact of the matter is that Izuru inarguably had a pretty good childhood. And if Izuru had to analyze why, he might have to admit it was just because he was a happy child — not because his life was perfect, of course, but because that was simply the type of personality Izuru grew up having. And if there was some reason for that, such as some deep and psychological drive to overcompensate for something by looking on the bright side, then there was really no way to quantify that for certain.

But for the sake of argument, let’s say we can.

Kagekiyo Kira died when Izuru was maybe four years old and as a result Izuru doesn’t have any solid memories of his father. When he looks at old photographs when his dad was still alive, Izuru definitely feels a pang of familiarity. Maybe a little sense of looking into a mirror. Kagekiyo looked very similar to Izuru, with the same pallid complexion, same thin lips and sloping brows. He was, perhaps, a little longer in the jaw than Izuru. Had a larger nose and a certain kind of shadow under the eyes, giving off the impression that he was always tired even in pictures where he was smiling.

The train incident that killed him had been a freak accident. The kind of completely random thing that only happens every once in awhile to become a bizarre statistic. They are the sort of mathematically unlikely happenstances that might cause the child of the victim to question mortality from a disturbingly young age, trying to attribute meaning to a meaningless tragedy.

But again, we can never say that for sure.

Shizuka Kira was also on the same train at the time of the accident, and it was only pure luck that she survived. The same catastrophe that killed her husband merely injured her. From what Izuru could gather from eavesdropping in the corner, Shizuka’s chest had been partially crushed, making it difficult for her to breath. When he visualizes it, Izuru imagines two balloons forced into a small birdcage, expanding and contracting against confines that were just too tight for them.

Izuru’s mother succeeding at living for another three years, each winter courageously battling a more and more intense fit of pneumonia. It seems that Shizuka’s lungs were destined to give up on her eventually.

Izuru still has memories of her in relative good health, at least as good as her health ever was during those times. On summer evenings, she would take him on long walks around the garden or the parks, and she would flex the knowledge on flora and fauna she had absorbed from her husband. The ghost-image still persists in Izuru’s memories, of her in her long sundress spread over her knees. A tiny Izuru sitting on one side of her lap and watching the way sunlight played with her golden blond hair, and her poetry journal on the other side opened up on her knee.

Those were happier days, before the world shifted back to winter.

So no, Izuru wouldn’t say immediately that he was familiar with death at a young age, or that he thought about it a lot. But as the years kind of sauntered on, he could begin to see how maybe it might have at least warped him. He finds himself at age thirteen, when puberty is just starting to touch him and change his body, comparing his acne-ridden face with the aged images of his father in photographs. Izuru wonders if his mother would approve of the way his body is growing, his studies and his hobbies and the way he still misses her.

It’s the beginning of summer when Izuru’s grandmother passes away. Izuru said goodbye in the hospital last night; now he listens to the doctor on his cell phone tell him that she’s gone. It was peaceful, apparently. In her sleep, and he’s grateful for that.

Izuru Kira is sixteen years old. He’s almost entirely grown out of his baby fat and into the purgatory of awkward teenage gangliness, his wrists and ankles persistently sticking out of his sleeves and pants cuffs. He’s better at hiding his feelings and worse at refraining from impulsive decisions, which is typical for most kids his age. He also has no idea how to plan a funeral, or manage his family home’s finances, which is also typical for most kids his age. He’s not even sure he really knows how life insurance works.

The playground has weathered since Izuru was in elementary school. The paint is chipping off the metal and the colorful plastic has become scratched and faded. The top part of the dragon slide has been so efficiently bleached by years in the bright sun that it looks gray and pale, like the shedded skin of an enormous serpent.

Metal creaks as Izuru twists the chains of the swings, and he’s glad to be alone, mostly. He’s glad that the sun is beginning to set and all the little kids have gone home, and soon he might be able to see fireflies flicker in and out of the darkness like fallen stars touching down on earth. Izuru’s toes tread the ground, carving circles into the wood chips.

He’s happy that there’s at least one place where it seems like time isn’t moving, away from his empty house full of memories of the people who made it empty.

Soreness touches the corners of his eyes, Izuru dabs at them with his shirt sleeve. He can’t afford to be immature now of all times, when he needs to keep himself together.

It’s not surprising at all that Renji would find him here. They only spent several years of their childhood meeting at this park, waiting until it was early or late enough to be alone or finding sparse corners where nobody would bother them. For Renji and Rukia to share glimpses of magic and for Izuru to be their devoted audience. So Izuru fails to be surprised when he hears the sound of metal and plastic groaning that denotes a larger weight sitting on the swing next to him.

“Hey.” Renji’s voice has gotten much deeper much quicker than Izuru expected it would, so much that it sometimes still shocks Izuru to hear a deep boom of a laugh. In his warm-weather clothes of a t-shirt, it’s obvious how much broader his shoulders have become. He’s not quite filled out, still gaunt around the jaw and the waist where it’s obvious nature isn’t done with him, but he nearly looks like an adult now. “How is she?”

Under normal circumstances, Izuru is never one to procrastinate when it comes to talking to Renji, even about stuff that’s embarrassing or stupid. But the tightness in his throat and the heaviness in his head make silence look so much more attractive, and that ends up being an answer in and of itself.

A heavy weight lands on Izuru’s bicep. Renji’s hand squeezes Izuru’s arm, all warm and solid. Izuru is torn between appreciating that comfort and just curling up in on himself lying on the ground until he passes out.

“Hey, do you wanna… y’know, talk about it?”

Izuru wipes his eyes again, making sure they’re dry. They feel itchy and are probably all red and swollen anyways. “No, I’m fine. It’s okay.”

“Alright,” Renji says. There’s so much obvious discomfort in his voice, it might be funny if Izuru’s mood weren’t so piss-poor. “Do you… do you wanna go home? I’ll make ya’ some tea or something. There’s this new thing I’ve been trying out with heat manipulation that’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, alright.” Izuru can’t think of anything he wants to do less than confine Renji in a big, sad house with a big, sad Izuru. Forcing his misery onto his friend. “I mean, I want to go home. You don’t– you don’t have to stay or anything, I’ll probably just sleep.”

Izuru wipes his eyes again, annoyed by their persistent wateriness revealing how weak he is. Renji swiftly slaps his hand away from his face. “Cut that out.”

Izuru is shocked back into awareness, putting his hand in his lap and pointing an indignant look towards Renji, who in turn looks borderline grumpy. “If you wanna cry, just cry. Better than drying out your eyes like than and making them all irritated. That bugs the hell outta me!”

At least Renji isn’t too uncomfortable with Izuru’s emotions he would stop bossing him around. That’s actually a relief. A little bolder for being told off, Izuru pouts at the ground.

There’s an uneasy moment of silence. Izuru observes his sneakers collect mud as he works his toes into the dirt. Next to him, Renji is wearing the same pair of boots he did when they were kids, only now they’re an appropriate size for him.

Finally, Izuru admits, “I don’t really want to go home.” The words sound petulant and childish to his own ears. His face burns. “I don’t want to be there alone.”

“You won’t be alone,” Renji argues. “I’ll spend the night with you.”

That actually sounds nice, having Renji there with him, but Izuru shakes his head. “It’s not… it’s not that I’m bothered by. Well, sort of. I don’t think…”

Izuru swallows, and there’s the weight of guilt sitting in his stomach, heavy and squeamish. “… I don’t think I can live there by myself. I just- I don’t know how. And I’ll have to- to… figure out what to do with her stuff. Pay bills and junk.” It sounds immediately overwhelming. The mere thought of the responsibility makes his head spin. “It’s just too much, I don’t know where to start.”

The swingset creaks with Renji’s movements. Izuru feels his world go stone-still as Renji’s hand wraps around his own on the swing chain. His fingers, big and calloused and clumsy, try to wrap around Izuru’s thinner, bonier digits. It’s kind of painful, actually, Izuru’s fingers being pinned against the chain, but he finds he doesn’t mind enough to complain.

“Then don’t. Come stay with me and Rukia.”

“In the Coven?” Izuru almost snorts, and his eyes successfully tear up without his sleeves to interfere. “Renji, I’m not a Witch.”

Renji shrugs. “I don’t care. It might be kind of weird, but I’m sure I can convince everyone to let you stay.”

The way he says ‘everyone’ makes Izuru nervous. He still remembers Isane barging in when they were little, her expression suspicious and guilty.

“Izuru.” Renji’s voice has that kind of rasp to it that he uses when he’s being stubborn, somewhere between a confident rumble and a petulant whine. Izuru’s lips almost quirk up at the sound of it. “C’mon. You’re like family.”

Family. It’s a word that, culturally, means something different for Renji than for Izuru, but gods if he couldn’t just dissolve into a puddle of emotions on the floor.

Something hot and wet rolls down the corner of Izuru’s cheeks. His nose is running grossly, and Izuru uses his free hand to blow into his elbow. Yuck. When he finally comes up for air he answers. “I mean… I guess we could try for a little while. Just until I’m back on my feet.”

“Atta boy!” Renji squeezes Izuru’s hand. His grin that is usually cocky and razor sharp has this peculiar gentleness to it. Izuru hardly has a choice but to smile genuinely in response.

-

Renji tells him he doesn’t need a backpack, and Izuru is inclined to agree. If he’s staying over in somebody else’s home, bringing an overnight bag would be pretty presumptuous. Anyways, if he needed anything he can still go back to his house and get it.

Renji guides Izuru by the hand, knuckles wrapped around Izuru’s thin wrist in a way that makes his skin heat up at the point of contact. It’s extremely embarrassing, but given that Izuru was just weeping and dripping like a leaky faucet he thinks his dignity is done with for the day. Besides, it feels nice. Renji hardly even seems to notice, and if the speed of his mouth is any indication then it might be because his brain is working too fast.

“You can bunk in my room. It’s pretty small, but there’s an extra cot and blankets and everything,” he explains, and Izuru realizes that they’re heading into the woods, past the point where Izuru and Rukia combatted those bullies years ago. Even for them, this is pretty far off the beaten path. “If we get Unohana’s permission, it’ll be no problem.”

He hasn’t heard that name before. “Who’s Unohana?”

But Renji seems vastly too preoccupied to answer. “Ikkaku and Nanao’ll probably be on your case. But don’t let them bully you, okay? They’re big pushovers when ya’ know how to push their buttons. Don’t let them see that you have a hard time asserting yourself or do that thing where you stammer a bunch.”

Tripping over the unkempt grass and slipping across soil softened to mud by the summer humidity, Izuru can only assume it’s hell to make this trip in the winter when there’s snow and ice everywhere. Under their feet, Izuru notices a thin little footpath where the grass has been trampled down. So narrow you wouldn’t notice it unless you had been taking this same route for years yourself.

Izuru’s not sure what he expects. Like, maybe Renji will say some magic word and a doorway will suddenly rise out of the ground. Or they’ll cross through some enchanted archway with two giant oak trees and when they pass out the other side they’ll suddenly be in a city of magic and Witchcraft that was right under Izuru’s nose the whole time.

None of that actually occurs, though if Renji ever has a say in how the Witches redesign their intimate Witch community then Izuru might have some helpful suggestions. Instead, he smells smoke on the air, like a summer bonfire, mixed with a sweet, tangy scent like wild berries. Through the cross-hatch of tree branches over his head, Izuru sees glimpses of smoke that flickers bizarre and vibrant colors like the hues of a nebula in the vast corners of space. Renji squeezes Izuru’s hand again, and maybe it’s just the numbness from his grip sinking in but Izuru could swear there’s a pulse of excitement that travels up his whole arm to the core of him.

Whatever Izuru was expecting the Coven to look like, the reality somehow managed to both defy and meet his expectations. His first thought is the images in his history textbooks of settlers with caravans, nomads who pack all of their possessions into carts and move from one place to the next. Izuru’s second thought is ‘traveling circus’ alongside ‘absurdly cozy trailer homes’.

The source of the smoke and the soothing smell is, in fact, a roaring bonfire that is circled by a wide halfmoon of buildings like a small city square. Many of the buildings are vaguely geometric in shape but come in a variety of absurd sizes and colors. They look almost like someone had gone through a variety of towns, ripping apart the buildings they liked and glueing them together in a modge-podge here, stapling random porches and storefronts to the finished pieces. Izuru sees a pink brick wall flow seamlessly into turquoise-painted paneled wood.

There’s what looks like a full florist’s shop, with a disorientingly busy amount of plants curling out of all the windows. Renji leads him past it, and Izuru can’t help but try to decipher the tangled flora with his eyes. A vine of pink flowers recedes into their buds when his shadow moves over them, and the root of what looks like a strawberry plant tries to crawl out of the ground and wriggle itself into Izuru’s sock.

“This is–” Izuru finds his voice when Renji next pulls him up to a homey looking building with a chimney and a colorful mural of an undersea ocean view drawn over the wooden planks with chalk. “This is the Coven, right? This is your hometown.”

Renji can’t smother his grin, maybe looking a little prideful at Izuru’s flummoxed reaction. “Kinda. This used t’ just be an open field until we unpacked here a few years ago, about the same time Rukia and I met you. I couldn’t bring you over cuz’ it’s kind of a lot, and most of the others aren’t psyched about bringing in non-Witches. It’s, like, a spiritual kind of place like that, y’know?”

Izuru nearly flushes at that. All he’d ever wanted as a little kid was this, being introduced to this special place where ‘normal’ people didn’t get to go. Now that he’s older, however, he has the self-awareness to be a little guilty about it. After all, hasn’t he seen for himself that there might be good reasons for Witches to want to be left alone?

“Hey, Rukia!” Renji throws a gangly arm in the air to wave a familiar figure over. Rukia floats around the bonfire with two other girls (Both with dark hair. One is petite and the other wears spectacles) before she spots Renji and Izuru and balks at them. After that, Rukia zips over so quickly he thinks for a moment she might actually phase through the center of the fire.

When she reaches him, she shocks Izuru by enveloping him in a hug. It’s particularly shocking because Rukia’s not much of a ‘hugger’ to begin with — she’s almost as awkward with contact as Izuru himself is. Her grip is too tight and she never knows what to do with her elbows and she succeeds at squeezing the life out of him.

“Izuru.” Rukia pulls back quickly, a serious look pasted over her face. “I’m so sorry about your grandmother. She was such a special woman. How are you doing?”

Taken aback, Izuru somewhat guiltily remembers that he’s grieving. At once the heavy and exhausting feeling of loss washes over him again. “I… I’m okay. Thank you, Rukia.”

“I told Izuru he could stay here for a while,” Renji explains, and gestures to Izuru like that should be enough context overall. “No reason to be alone in that big old house. ‘Sides, we got enough room.”

Rukia’s look goes critical in an instant, her brows furrowing and firing a dubious look at Renji through her lashes. “That’s awfully generous of you, considering you haven’t arranged that with anybody else. You do know you’ll have to tell Unohana and Kenpachi, right?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna! It won’t be a problem, trust me.”

“Your funeral,” Rukia says, before apparently becoming self aware and looking at Izuru with a flush on her cheeks. “I don’t mean that about you, Izuru. I’m sure we can definitely work something out for you. Renji just has this chronic habit of pushing buttons and being underfoot.”

“Hey!”

“Yeah, for sure…” Izuru says, trying to hide his dwindling confidence.

“Buck up, soldier.” Renji gives Izuru a slap on the back. “I told you I was gonna handle this, no problem.”

“Right. Miss Unohana really is very kind, even if she can be intimidating,” Rukia explains, then jabs her thumb at the building with the big ocean mural. “So I guess there’s nothing else to do but go check and see if she’s available, right, Renji?”

Renji’s fountain of arrogance stutters for a whole second, eyes bugging as the realization dawns on him of what he will have to do. Izuru honestly has to wonder exactly what kind of terror this Unohana person is to inspire obedience from Renji of all wayward souls. “Piece of cake.”

If he says so…

On closer inspection, Izuru realizes that the mural of the ocean on the front of the house is not old very vivid and beautiful, but also it is very much actually moving. The ripples of a hundred blues waiver and catch the reflections of sunlight just like real water, flashing spots of white gold. A cluster of starfish on the sandy bottom of the landscape gently inch their way across the seafloor, tentatively probing the sand with their many legs.

Following Renji to the doorway, Izuru starts as a huge and dark shadow floats across the wall from behind the door. The wings of an enormous manta ray open up and carry the creature to glide through the mural before disappearing out of sight.

Izuru’s fascination must be obvious to Renji, who stops to observe the way his companion is gaping at a wall. “Careful, she doesn’t like it when you stare too long.”

“She?” Izuru asks, but the manta ray has already vanished.

He expects to pass through the door and feel something mysterious and unwelcome move through him. Izuru’s stomach ties itself into a knot — He’s been friends with Renji and Rukia for years, but he’s never met any guardian of theirs. Never even met an adult Witch.

However, nothing dark or unusual strikes Izuru as he enters. Despite his nerves, he even feels a refreshing wave of… warmth. Calmness washes over him. Like being enveloped in a warm, clean blanket just come out of the laundry, or the taste of fresh water over a parched tongue.

The inside of the room is painted sky blue, and most of the furniture is tan colored wood, complete with a set of plush, navy arm chairs arranged near a bookcase. Next to that is a big, orange box labeled TOYS in bright letters, with a plastic truck and the top half of a fuzzy pink bear visible under the unsealed lid. The windows are pulled wide open to allow sunlight through, but most noticeable is the furthest wall, which is almost entirely covered by children’s art pictures.

Crayons, colored pencils, watercolors, even some pastels. Each one is a colorful, innocently unskilled token of somebody’s childhood. Each one sports a signature and an age scrawled in the corner. Izuru approaches, a little transfixed, and notices that he sees Renji’s name several times on different papers.

“She’s gotta be around here somewhere–” Renji wanders towards the rightmost room. “Oh! Hey, Miss Unohana. Fancy running into you here!”

Izuru peeks into what is set up to be a sitting room, done in soft colors of lilac and white. And there, on a plum-colored couch, he spots Isane, who he might not even have recognized except for her distinctive white hair. She’s taller, broader, and handsomer than when he saw her as a teenager. Next to her sits a beautiful older woman, wearing a very old-fashioned yukata. Izuru might be hypnotized by her elegance if he wasn’t more distracted by the large, uneven scar that stretches across her throat. Below that discolored mark is a diamond-shaped pendant.

“Renji, please come in.” The woman says, holding a steaming tea cup in her lap. There’s a pair of knitting needles floating next to her that appears to be working on making a scarf of their own accord. “It’s rare of you to bring company. Perhaps when you are showing him around, Rukia can teach both of you a time-honored Witchcraft tradition; calling in advance.”

Renji looks sufficiently shamed, slinking into the room. From the creaking of small sneakers behind him, Izuru identifies that Rukia is lingering in the foyer to keep an eye on things. Maybe for back-up, or maybe because she’s curious.

The woman — Izuru deduces her to be Unohana — looks directly at Izuru. Eye contact is made, and her face is smiling pleasantly. She has a mature set of crow’s feet around twinkling dark eyes. Yet, Izuru feels her expression is unreadable. He can’t tell if she is genuinely pleased to see him, or disguising her disapproval. “Young man, please come in. There’s no reason to look so tense.”

Izuru would argue that there definitely is a reason, but he skitters into the room nonetheless. When Unohana gestures to the couch opposite her own, Renji and Izuru both take their seats wordlessly.

“There we go. Would either of you like tea?” She motions towards the teapot on the coffee table in front of her, which is styled to look like a large clock with the hands turning in real time. Izuru is curious about the source of her porcelain collection. Renji and Izuru both politely decline.

“Now, Isane,” Unohana begins. “If I’m correct, this is the young man you told me about before. Renji’s friend, yes?”

Isane sips her tea, and Izuru is relieved to see she doesn’t regard him with hostility here. Perhaps in this domain, and with this woman, she feels more confident. “Yes, though it’s been awhile since I last saw him. Hello again, and, uh, sorry for barging into your home that one time.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“So, Mister…” Unohana trails off pointedly, and Izuru realizes his cue.

“Izuru Kira.” He does a quick bow on impulse, which looks a little silly already seated at the couch, but oh well. “Thank you for having me in your home.”

“Mr. Kira.” Unohana nods. “Of course, I don’t have any problem with you in this area, but you should know it’s very rare for people outside of our community to enter Coven space. I, myself, have found that both sides get along peacefully when they keep to themselves.”

Izuru’s mind flashes back to that day when he was nine with Rukia by the creek. He cannot find it in himself to doubt that was the first and only incident. “I understand that, Ma’am. I’d also understand if you would prefer that I, um, excuse myself.”

“Hold up.” Renji cuts in, hands clenched on his knees. “Miss Unohana, Izuru doesn’t have another place to go. I figured maybe he could stay here because, you know, helping a friend in need an’ all.”

Izuru might take umbrage with Renji’s definition of ‘in need’. Even though he is technically an orphan on this day, so he supposes it’s an apt descriptor.

Unohana waves her hand stiffly, and Izuru senses some of the authoritative, commanding figure in that controlled motion that must make her so influential around here. “Calm down, Renji. I didn’t say that he couldn’t stay, I just want to make sure you both understand that this is odd situation for you to put our Coven in. You’ll have to deal with the consequences on your own.”

Isane’s eyes shift from Unohana, then towards Izuru and Renji, then towards the floor. Izuru can make some educated guess that it’s related to him being an outsider here, and what that might mean down the road.

But the good news is that he has a home, at least. He’ll get to live here with Renji and the others, and he won’t be alone. That’s enough.

Unohana places her teacup down on the table and pours herself another cup. She gently taps the table once with a polished fingernail and, as if bouncing from a cosmic shockwave, two sugarcubes hop out of the dish and into her cup. “Mr. Kira, has Renji told you why the unity of the Coven is so significant? Or, for that matter, why he brought you here to ask for my permission before you could stay?”

Looking out of the corner of his eyes, Izuru sees Renji pout at the wall before he gives his answer. “Because… you are the leader here, right?”

“I suppose you could see it that way. The role I play is very much that of a matriarch.” Despite their earlier protests, Unohana places two tea cups in front of the boys. And begins to fill them. Odd, Izuru didn’t see those cups before.

“Like many mainstream religions, such as the Church, Witches are typically polytheistic. We believe in many different gods, but typically favor one or two as our patron deities.” Unohana explains patiently, pausing between breaths to sip tea. Izuru tries his out. It’s almost absurdly bitter. “The deity that I worship is the Blood-Mother Ocean Goddess, the patron of children and wisdom.”

As she lowers her teacup, the pendant around her neck flashes against her sternum. Squinting slightly, Izuru realizes it isn’t a diamond shape but rather glossy red stone that is carved into a manta ray.

The image of the manta ray gliding over the mural flashes in Izuru’s mind, along with Renji’s words. She doesn’t like it when you stare too long. So not just a touchy painting, but rather some kind of guardian?

Izuru isn’t religious. The entire ideology of the Gods and such feel sort of archaic to him. He doesn’t doubt their existence, but he regards them as a kind of foreign policy. Maybe it makes sense to some people, but it all goes over his head and he is perhaps better off not looking into since he’s never going to go there himself. The realization that just by associating with Witches Izuru is also brushing fingertips with their spirituality is a little daunting.

“As part of my bond to her, the Blood-Mother Ocean Goddess allows me to locate children who will eventually develop a proficiency for Witchcraft. We believe these children are specially chosen by our deities, as they are almost always in need of a home. We raise those children as family and teach them to be Witches.”

In the briefest pause of her words, Izuru watches Unohana’s dark eyes move under dark lashes. They’re black, like obsidian or beetle shells, and they roll from Isane, to Renji, to Rukia with an unconscious familiarity. That expression reminds Izuru of summer, and long blond hair, and a poetry book open on top of a knee.

“Though some older members of our community may have come from other places, you’ll find that most individuals here here who are closer your own age have grown up being raised by the Coven and don’t spend much time with non-magical people. They might not trust you.” Unohana’s fingers wrap around her teacup. They’re short and adorned with large rings. Izuru wonders if Renji will wear stuff like that when he gets more powerful. “That said, Renji is correct that letting you stay is the right thing to do. I could never just throw a child out. So you are welcome to stay for as long as you need.”

Izuru swallows down a lump, and the sensation of sadness intermingling with joy is an odd one to say the least. Kind of like receiving a kitten and then getting punched in the face. He doesn’t want to be a charity case.

Renji’s hand claps Izuru on the back, finding purchase on his shoulder and squeezing firmly. When Izuru looks over, he sees Renji smiling that cocky, self-satisfied smile like this proves everything is going to be okay.

Izuru finds himself smiling back, and at once he has no choice but to believe him.

“Thank you so much, Miss Unohana,” Izuru says, putting every dollop of sincerity into his voice. “I really appreciate it, and I promise I’ll do everything I can to make up for my stay.”

He succeeds at convincing himself everything will be okay.

-

‘Bunking with Renji’ apparently means sharing a cluttered one-room studio apartment that Renji has occupied since, apparently, forever. As soon as Izuru enters he almost immediately trips over an open-faced book on the floor and careens into an overflowing laundry hamper.

“Sorry about that,” Renji says as he kicks a pathway through the debris on his floor. “I’ve got a futon here I can roll out. Hope that’s good with you.”

Izuru mutters something affirmatory and surveys his new surroundings. Renji’s room looks remarkably like everything and nothing that he expected. There’s about an even mix of ordinary things — plastic furniture that doesn’t match, an occasional dirty sock tucked under the sagging frame of an unmade bed — all stirred around with things that reveal Renji’s more supernatural inclinations. There are diagrams pinned to the walls, written in some pattern and language Izuru can’t decipher. A world map with ley lines drawn out in red marker sitting on a desk, underneath an ornament of glossy stones hanging from the window. The table is almost entirely covered by what looks like a chemistry set. It smells like pungently scented candles mixed with that distinctively sweaty teenaged boy smell.

Izuru, who has never had a roommate or even a sleepover, finds this calming and even pleasant compared to confronting the mysterious Unohana in her spotless tea room.

“I guess we still need t’ get your stuff from your house, right? We can probably do that tomorrow.” Renji continues, and Izuru finds himself distinctly drawn to the nearest rickety chair and sinking down onto the table. He remembers that he’s emotionally exhausted just in time to lay his head down on folded arms while Renji continues to ramble on, tossing the contents of his apartment this way and that.

“There’s a kitchen downstairs, and a bathroom down the hall. You’ll find your way around pretty easily, it’s a small town.”

Heavy eyes, dry and lids drooping, fall into the floor as Izuru’s vision starts to go fuzzy. The last thing he sees is Renji’s battered boots, ever familiar, stomp into his view before reality starts to fade. Renji’s voice, which sounds so deep and adult these days, echoes in Izuru’s ear, “Tomorrow I’ll show you around a little more, after you get settled and all. Sure we’ll find something cool to do…”

Izuru finally fades into sleep, deeply and heavily. And even though there was a futon promised, Izuru knows when he wakes up by the layers of cotton enveloping him that he must be in Renji’s bed.

-

It turns out that Renji is correct about Izuru learning to find his way around quickly. Izuru’s not sure how this town can exist, isolated in the woods without roads and sidewalks, but he suspects that there’s some Witchy spacial manipulation involved. Even then, the entire settlement is about a fraction of his own town full of boring, non-magical, property tax-paying citizens.

He also has a lot of time to get familiar with many of the other Witches, and how exactly they all function together. As near as he can tell, Unohana is like the internal diplomat, managing the domestic affairs of the Coven on top of the duty of bringing up young Witchlings. Izuru can’t imagine how those two roles must always be keeping her on her feet. Just chasing around a young Renji and Rukia was enough to keep Izuru exhausted, and that was without trying to enforce bedtimes or a strict teeth-brushing policy.

However, just as Unohana is a more calculating and involved figure of authority within the Coven, it makes sense to Izuru that there is a yang to her ying. This assumption is not incorrect.

The morning after Izuru arrives in the Coven, Renji and Rukia enthusiastically decide they will help him move in. A long trek is made to Izuru’s house, boxes of his books and belongings that he might want with him collected and hauled back through the woods.

While Renji and Rukia are unpacking upstairs, Izuru does something reasonable like suggest, “I’ll go get the last box from downstairs.” Like a sensible human being just minding their own business would.

It is there, on the ground floor and struggling to lift the box with his skinny arms that he feels a shadow pass over him. Massive and heavy, like a mountain rising up to blot out the sun.

“The hell? I don’t remember a blond one…” A voice that sounds like tectonic plates grinding against each other rumbles above him, and Izuru looks up to observe an absolute boulder of a human being.

The man he sees is clearly the tallest person that Izuru has ever seen in his life. And if his sheer towering height wasn’t impressive enough, the broadness of his flat shoulders was certainly overkill. If Izuru blinks through the sudden person-shaped solar eclipse, he can make out a wide face with a crooked nose and narrow lips, looking wolfish. There’s a gruesome scar down one side of his face, from temple to jaw.

As he enters the house, Izuru feels compelled to hop back lest he get stepped on purely by accident. In his massive hand there’s what looks like a slender log, about the as tall as Izuru is and made of raw wood with a jagged hunk of black jewel mounted on one end.

“I leave fer two weeks, and you brats start multiplying…” The man-shaped wall mutters. He raises the big staff from where it’s braced against his shoulder and knocks the wooden end of it against the roof with a ‘thump’. Izuru swears he can hear not only the entire house shake, but maybe the entire woods. “What’s ‘t eat in this joint, I’m starving.”

There’s a tell-tale thumping of feet down the stairs that denotes Renji rushing down with the subtler tapping of Rukia on his heels, and that familiar pop of red hair turns round the corner. “Izuru, what the hell is-”

Izuru, not yet sure how flummoxed he should be, looks from Renji to the bizarre giant helplessly. Said giant has made himself very comfortable in the kitchen, eating Izuru’s cold leftover macaroni straight from the tupperware.

But Renji’s face just lights up, which Izuru hopefully takes to mean that this is not a peculiar macaroni burglary. “Hey, Kenpachi!”

He all but bounds down the stairs to greet the large man. “Where’ve you been? Nobody’s seen ya’ in days?”

Kenpachi pauses from inhaling Izuru’s pasta and drops his hand on Renji’s shoulder in a way that Izuru assumes is affectionately. In reality, it looks like that one little touch nearly knocked Renji off his feet, but that doesn’t seem to matter to either of them. “Hey, kid. Had business to take care of in the east countryside. Figured I’d get some good fights in with the mages, but it turns out folks over there are almost as boring as here.”

Rukia appears next to Izuru, looking winded from the chase. Hands braces on her knees, she wheezes, “Gods, why does that kid have such long legs,” before standing up and rearranging herself. She, alone, clues into Izuru’s confusion. “I see you’ve met Kenpachi.”

“Yeah,” Izuru agrees, watching Kenpachi sink into the kitchen chair and Renji bounce around him as he insists on making tea. “Who?”

“Kenpachi. He’s been around for as long as I remember. He’s really powerful, so he’s kind of in charge if Unohana isn’t around,” Rukia explains, arms folded over her chest and watching the scene serenely. “He spent more time in the Coven when me and the other kids were younger, but these days he kind of does his own thing.”

“Oh,” Izuru says. Now that he looks at it, he can kind of see how the combined efforts of people like Unohana and Kenpachi raising a generation of Witches might lead to people like Renji and Rukia. Kenpachi tolerates Renji’s prattling and enthusiasm with the air of a person who isn’t bothered by many things. “That giant man ate my pasta.”

“Yeah, he’ll do that. Food is never safe in this place.”

Eventually, Kenpachi takes notice of Izuru for a second time. His eyes are very narrow and dark, Izuru gets the sense that, much like Unohana, he has no goddamn clue what is going on in this person’s head.

Finally, Kenpachi jerks a crooked thumb at him and turns to Renji. “Who’s th’ twig?”

“Izuru,” Renji explains, putting four mugs of tea on the kitchen table. “Long story. He’s staying with us.”

“He a normie?”

Renji looks up at Izuru with a kind of look in his eyes and a crook in his brows, like he’s simultaneously apologetic and teasing. “Vanilla as they come.”

“Hey!” Izuru steams, purely on principle. It’s not like it’s not true.

Kenpachi chugs his mug in one gulp, and the cup looks adorably tiny in his giant hands. “Cool.”

-

There are a handful of what Rukia referred to as ‘the other kids’ who live in the Coven, and apparently are all different degrees of more private than Renji and Rukia are, which accounts for why Izuru has never met them in his youth.

There’s Isane, of course. Shy, sweet Isane who is much warmer to Izuru now that he’s a part of ‘the family’. He often runs into her going in and out of the greenhouse-type building, smelling like spices, or running errands for Unohana.

“I like helping out where I can,” Isane explained to Izuru. She had been making flower arrangements on the porch, something that Izuru remembers picking up in one of his books in the family library. Isane arranges brown-eyed susans around buttercups and sunflowers. “That’s why I, uh, spent a lot of time looking after the littler kids way back when. I wanted to show Retsu I was responsible.”

Isane deposits the flowers into a stone vase then dumps in a jar that smells like roses and looks like honey. The flowers begin to glow just a little and Izuru instantly feels his pores clear up.

Then there’s Momo, a little dollop of a girl in beaded charm bracelets and paint-splattered sneakers. She shows him around the Coven’s miniscule second-hand bookstore, which is not so much a bookstore as much as it is a local lending library. Apparently, the store aspect of it became moot as people would buy the books and then sell them back, so charging fines was really the sensible and efficient option.

Momo has eyes the color of black tea, and when she brushes back her black bangs from her eyes Izuru sees the spark of mischief flash in their murky depths. He sees her hanging around Renji and Rukia a lot, trying to lure their interest into one of the girthy spellbooks that she goes through like water.

She tutors a clueless Izuru on the different disciplines of magic, and about how apparently there’s more to Witchcraft than blind improvisation.

“Renji and Rukia are all about using magic willy-nilly,” Momo sighs, and Izuru decides that no teenager should sound so adorable when saying things like ‘willy-nilly’. “They’re too impatient to charge up their spells with charms or herbs, so their spells aren’t that powerful and don’t last very long by themselves.”

Izuru chews on this for a moment, looking at a large anthology Momo had dropped in his lap that was honestly big enough to break his toes. On the yellowed pages, an ancient wizard is dipping a human ear into a boiling cauldron.

Momo reads Izuru brightly, with dimples in her cheeks. “You’re probably thinking ‘Renji and Rukia are already really powerful, though’ right?” And she giggles when Izuru gapes at her and turns cherry-colored. “When a Witch focuses, they can do a lot more than just move things around with their minds. You’ll see.”

And of course, for every light side of the Coven he meets, Izuru discovers some less cheerful elements as well. Such as Nanao, the girl with the severe, rectangle-shaped spectacles that are just a little bit too big for her face and slant awkwardly off her nose when she wrinkles it. Which, Izuru discovers, she does quite a lot. Usually while fixing Izuru with a glare out of the corner of her eyes and jotting things down in her journals secretively.

“Nanao is slow to warm up,” Rukia explains when the bespectacled Witchling is out of earshot. Izuru watches Nanao’s back as she carries a stack of books taller than herself to a picnic blanket with Isane and Momo spread out under a shady tree. “But she’s just really shy. Trust me; she’s not as mean as she comes off.”

Renji snorts somewhere just behind them. “‘Just shy’ sure is one world for it.” And then Rukia smacks him.

And last but certainly not least there’s Ikkaku and Yumichika, who Izuru considers appropriate to count together as one, singular unit. They seem to be almost everywhere together. And by ‘everywhere’, Izuru means hanging either around Renji or Kenpachi.

Ikkaku is a wide-shouldered, towering boy with a clean-shaved head, and any given time Izuru sees him around Renji they’re either wrestling or in the process of breaking something beyond recognition. Yumichika is slender with long, shiny black hair, and an impeccable knack for egging the former two on.

He has that way of talking about him, silver-tongued as he flips his hair over a pale shoulder. “When Ikkaku passes his Witch training you’re going to become his apprentice. Right, Renji?”

“Hell yeah.” Wearing a wild grin like a forest fire, Renji pumps his fist over Ikkaku head, whose bulging eyes snap to attention very suddenly.

“Say what?”

“Definitely!” Renji’s fists are up, bouncing on his heels around Ikkaku like if he disagrees there will be a legitimate fight. “You’re gonna teach me all your spells an’ shit, and when I’m done you’ll be like ‘oh man, Renji’s totally a stronger Witch than me! He should be the new leader of the Coven, cuz’ he could kick my ass.’”

“Oh, I’ll teach you something alright, ya brat!”

And thus, Izuru is left to observe the rowdy teens in their natural habitat, with Ikkaku putting Renji in a respectable headlock while Yumichika sidles up next to him.

Izuru resists the urge to shy away under Yumichika’s scrutinizing gaze. He’s still getting used to all these Witchlings, but the hardest part might be that they already know each other so well. They’re a family, and newcomer Izuru can’t help being subconscious.

“You’re new here, so you probably don’t know what it means to be a Witch’s apprentice, right?” Yumichika says, like a laser-guided missile right to Izuru’s insecurities. His voice comes through deep and clear over the rabble of Ikkaku and Renji bullying each other, and he seems to take a special delight in being smarter than Izuru is. “As a rite of passage, Witchlings have to be tutored and supervised by an older, more experienced Witch before they’re considered to be fully knowledgeable Witches. Ikkaku, Isane and I are the oldest of the kids here, so everybody expects us to start taking on those roles for the younger kids soon.”

Izuru never had any older siblings or cousins, so he can’t perfectly replicate the impression, but he supposes that must be what it’s like. Needing to grow up quickly so that the older kids can take care of the younger. Izuru is lucky that he has Renji for that.

“What about you?” Izuru asks, twisting his fingers in his palm. “Are you going to take on an apprentice?”

Yumichika’s eyebrows rise, and he laughs without humor. “Me? I think not. I don’t have the patience for that kind of thing. Besides, Ikkaku is a lot more charismatic than I am, so he’ll make a good teacher.”

The two of them gaze out and fondly admire Renji attempting to powerslam Ikkaku into a trash can, losing his balance and falling flat on his back in the process.

-

On the morning of the last day of summer, Izuru makes sure to wake up early. Even earlier than Renji, which is a task in its own right. Who would think that for such a big guy, he’d also be a light sleeper? Every time Izuru has a strange dream, Renji brings it up the next morning because he was woken up by Izuru’s tossing and turning.

Renji is always looking after him like that. Izuru can’t really explain when that started, just as he can’t explain when he stopped becoming embarrassed by it and just became grateful. When fond looks became lingering, or warm touches became affectionate. Izuru tries to parse his thoughts as he tiptoes around the room and into his clothes, not daring to make a sound. It’s very early in the morning after all. Blue light from dawn is just barely peeking through a crack in the curtains and shockingly managing to find a bare inch of floorspace. The room is much cleaner than when Izuru first moved in, and he doesn’t mind cleaning up a little if Renji doesn’t mind Izuru touching his stuff.

Looking back at a still sound asleep Renji, Izuru allows himself to relax and lower his shoulders. Renji’s eyes are shut tightly, body splayed out on his back, one foot dangling precariously off the side of his bed, and hair beginning to come out of its braid. Renji always sleeps like he’s just passed out from exhaustion and it’s only dumb luck that he landed perfectly on the mattress.

Looking down at him, Izuru considers brushing  stray strands of red out of Renji’s face, or maybe adjusting the sheets over his chest, then immediately counts the hundreds of reasons that would be a bad idea.

Renji’s chest gently rises and falls. The small but heavy sound of air passing over his lips is the only sound in the room, aside from Izuru’s own heartbeat pounding in his ears. The other boy looks so at peace, Izuru can’t help but think it’s surreal. He must be the only person in the world who gets to see Renji so relaxed, so comfortable without his usual bluster put up.

Even when he’s awake, Izuru is learning to read Renji so much better than he ever could before. There’s a nuance to the redhead’s emotions that he isn’t sure anyone, not even the other Witchlings, really appreciate. There’s a difference between when Renji is mad, or frustrated, or worried, or bored. There’s a way he bridles his emotions secretly, trying to be brave and fiery all the time.

Izuru wishes Renji could only always be so relaxed or as happy as he is right now. Being so strong-willed, Renji has no choice but to hold himself back. But Izuru thinks the times that he’s the most enthusiastic and wild are the most fun. He’d love to keep seeing Renji happy like that.

Well, that was a pretty poignant thought Izuru had right there, wasn’t it? Izuru shakes himself back to reality, and after a moment of making sure Renji is still deeply asleep, he chalks his fuzzy feelings to just being tired and excited and continues to get himself ready.

Softly, as softly as a body can move, Izuru tenderly inches down the stairs to make sure all the lights are off and the curtains are tightly drawn closed before taking his position. He sits on his heels patiently, knowing that soon Renji’s alarm will go off and he will wake in confusion to being alone after growing so used to there being another presence waking up with him.

Izuru’s heart jumps in anticipation as he visualizes, with perfect clarity, the gentle movements of a body awakening. Renji climbing over his confusion to shuffle down the hallway to the stairs. And from the moment sluggish feet begin to descend the staircase, Izuru hears Momo bouncing a little next to him. And by a hair’s breadth they make it until Renji is all the way down before the curtains fly open and sunlight rushes in. Finally, there’s the boom of six tone-deaf Witchlings plus Izuru attempting to harmonize; “Happy birthday!”

It’s the last day of summer. It’s the day that Renji turns seventeen. And it’s the day that Izuru feels his stomach twist into a fluttery knot when Renji’s sleep-softened face breaks into a beaming grin, and it’s looking straight through the crowd at Izuru.

When Renji’s demand of birthday cake for breakfast is firmly denied (“Are you five?” Rukia asks incredulously as he threatens to throw a tantrum.) there is a blessed bit of downtime before a grand birthday dinner. And Renji has apparently decided to turn the tables on Izuru with a surprise of his own.

“Hey, Izuru. I actually need your help with something.” He grins and jabs a thumb outside. “Let’s bounce over to the library real quick. If we wait until the evening, I’ll forget to take a break from b-day admirers.”

Of course, Izuru agrees. “Sure thing.”

The library has stained glass windows that cast vibrant reflections of pink and blue on the oaken table where Izuru seats himself. He and Renji are the only two people in the library at all, but he doesn’t worry about it. A lot of buildings like these are left unattended, since there are so few people in town anyways and it’s not too hard to notice when something is missing.

(Plus Izuru suspects that in some cases, such as with the greenhouse, thievery comes with risks worse than punishment. He recently learned that Isane’s venus flytraps are in season in the summer. And they’ve just hit a growth spurt in a big and bloodthirsty way.)

Izuru watches with intrigue the way Renji struggles with the step stool, selecting a book with brass around the spine to keep it bound it together and altogether looking comically large. Izuru fully expects Renji to topple over or drop it as soon as it is released from its resting place.

Somehow, though, Renji succeeds in making it back to the floor in one piece and brandishes the book dangerously with an arrogant little gleam in his eye. “Check this out.”

The book has no title, but on it’s cover there is a boxy embellishment of a creature with an open maw, sitting upright with its paws raised upwards. Izuru’s curiosity is piqued even before Renji drops the book on the desk with a ‘thud’ big enough to bend the table legs underneath its weight.

Renji peels the ancient and frayed cover back, spends a good few moments squinting at the contents and flipping through yellow, dog-eared pages. Between the flips of parchment, Izuru catches glimpses of vivid images in shiny black ink. There is a picture of a beast like a dragon rising out of the ground. One of a giant storm with the face of a woman. One that is just a little girl, but her eyes are black and there’s blood on the bottom of her dress. Izuru leans up on his toes for a better look.

Finally, Renji lands on the correct page and spins it around to show Izuru, and he sees on the page the appropriate beast — a ferocious-looking monster, wearing a heavy winter shawl around it’s massive shoulders. Four eyes peer from the top of it’s long, fanged muzzle. Despite it’s animalistic appearance, the creature stands upright and Izuru finds it eerily, spookily human.

Under the image, Izuru deciphers the scrawling, blocky text; ‘The Baboon God. She whose screams wake the dead and devours the Sun on her burning Tooth’.

“One of the Dark Gods?” Izuru summarizes. He’s gleaned a lot about the Witchcraft tradition, but sometimes it still feels like a lot to process. He doesn’t really understand how anyone could worship such powerful, fearsome creatures and feel safe.

“Mmhmm,” Renji confirms. “My God, I think. After I finish my training, I need to start picking my own patron Gods to give me guidance and power. I like a lot of the animal ones, but she’s my favorite.”

Izuru begins to try and sparse the wall of text following the picture and title. He is familiar with what the locals here might call ‘the drill’ by now — Witchlings like Renji are only at a fraction of their full power. He’ll go one, maybe two years being tutored by Ikkaku, studying and refining his magic until he’s a fully fledged Witch.

Renji will pledge his allegiance to one God, then maybe eventually more. Izuru doesn’t fully understand the bond between God and worshipper, but he can glean that it’s a symbiotic relationship. Gods give their worshippers greater power, and in turn Witches might carry out specific rituals or duties, such as Unohana being the leader of the Coven.

“That’s amazing, Renji!” Izuru beams, and he really does mean it. It’s amazing. Renji is amazing.

Against his wishes, Izuru’s mind flits towards his grandmother. It does that from time to time still, as it’s only been a few months since she passed. Izuru thinks she would have liked to see this day, she at least seemed like she wanted to get to know Renji a little better. What guardian wouldn’t want to know more about their steward’s best friend, especially one as… mysterious as Renji?

Izuru reminds himself that he’s not sad today. This is a happy day! A day about being happy and about Renji, no less, which are two wonderful things for a day to be about.

“Renji, can I ask you something?” Izuru’s brow furrows, and he tries to find the most suitably gentle tone of voice as Renji looks up in acknowledgement. “Do you… not have a biological family? Like, I know you were raised by the Coven. But you obviously came from somewhere before that, right?”

Dark lashes blink, and Renji’s lips twist to look flummoxed by this question. As if he can’t imagine what would possess Izuru to ask, or maybe like he’s never really thought of it himself. “No… I mean, I guess I must, don’t I? Somewhere out there, probably.”

The answer hangs between them in uneasy silence for a moment, Izuru looking at Renji and Renji looking back at him and neither knowing what to say. Eventually, Renji starts to look uncomfortable and shatters the tension with a fast-paced voice.

“You know Unohana can locate Witchlings before they even develop their powers, right?” Renji begins, and from his pitch Izuru can assume it may just lead into a ramble. “Well, for some reason, they’re almost always abandoned or unwanted kids. The Dark Gods have a soft spot for babies, I guess. All the other kids our age were orphans before the Coven found ‘em. I don’t know about the grown-ups, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same.”

Izuru nods, and supposes that does make sense. After all, the Witches have always been know as outsiders, on the edge of society. It fits that they would take in children who were most in need of a home. “What about when Witches have kids of their own. Do people like you have Witch lineages and ancestors or something?”

“I can’t have kids,” Renji says, with the kind of finality to it that Izuru finds kind of daunting in someone who only just turned seventeen. “None of us Witches can. It’s something we give up in exchange for our powers.”

Not all too subtly, Renji’s eyes flit back to the book on the table. The open page of the Baboon God looks at them with an inscrutable gaze boring out of all four of her dark eyes. “Unohana says it’s something to do with keeping the balance. The Gods don’t want us to become dependent on hereditary talent or hierarchies, so there’ll always be a safe place for little kids without a home.”

“Ah.” Izuru nods. He can’t imagine what it would be like to be in that position. After his mother died, at least Izuru had his grandmother to turn to so he was never really alone, and he deeply appreciates that. He’s not sure how he would have gotten on if she wasn’t there to look after him, lonely and sad and scared.

Still, Nanna was long past her child-rearing days by the time Izuru needed her, and she was only one person. How amazing would it have been to have a community of people, young and old, who would support him through everything? Then again, that’s kind of what he has now.

When Izuru speaks again, his voice is more thoughtful. “A title like ‘The Dark Gods’ sounds so intimidating and threatening. But I suppose in reality they’re more about protecting and peace.”

“Yeah, man. Dark doesn’t always mean ‘bad’. It can be about, like, nature and healing and stuff.” Renji grins at him. “Maybe having parents would be fine an’ all, but I don’t need them. I got the Coven, and Rukia, and you…”

Time seems to turn into liquid around Izuru. There is a slow and thick transition between moments, like looking between two pictures on different pages in a photo album. There is a moment where both of his hands are on the desk, on either side of the book. His fingers, a little cold, a lot bony and skinny as he begins to look more and more like his mother.

And then in the next photo there is Renji’s hand on top of Izuru’s. And Izuru can feel the heat that radiates from Renji’s palms. Every crack and bump of his bruises and scars on the calloused pads of his fingers. His hand nearly swallows Izuru’s own, so heavy and warm.

In the next picture, they’re both on their feet. They’re learning over the table to meet each other and Izuru finds Renji’s lips pressed against his. It’s not perfectly romantic, persay. It has all the clumsiness and bashfulness one could imagine of a first kiss, but it’s perfect and good and Izuru’s head is spinning so hard he thinks he might pass out.

A surge like burning hot tickles Izuru’s mouth, making him go numb, and he might have thought it was just nerves until the light fixture over Renji’s head pops into life.

He doesn’t want to turn the page. This is the kind of moment that should last forever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a very steep drop in happy funtimes from hereon out, folks.

More and more, Izuru finds that the vast majority of his hours are spent in the comfort of the night.

It’s not just the deep winter, and the way it seems to swallow daylight, and it feels like one minute Izuru stepped outside to get the morning mail and the next minute he’s trudging back inside through a fucking midnight snowstorm. This season feels like a tense death, waiting to spring out of its grave with a stressful degree of anticipation.

That sounds like a macabre way to live, to an untrained mind. But Renji and his kin live their life finding vitality in those obscure corners of the world, so Izuru does as well. Witches don’t see shadows and death and darkness as a source of pain. They’re beautiful, and natural, and Izuru appreciates the peaceful hours of a silent winter night, with only candles illuminating the broad shape of Renji’s back as he paints the snow in his own bright red blood under a waxing moon.

“It’s beautiful, baby,” Izuru tells him when Renji comes over, gives up his hand for Izuru to wrap a bandage around over the oozing gash. The black stripes of Renji’s tattoos undulate and squirm underneath his skin. His eyes are as black as night and his smile could cut diamonds.

So Izuru is used to running around at all odd hours of the evening. It’s more alarming to him when he wakes up at the crack of dawn, with a gray sliver of sunlight cutting his waist in half from the open crack of the curtains.

The mattress sighs underneath Izuru’s careful shifting, bringing himself to sit up fully. He has to be careful not to move too much, lest he wake up Renji lying in bed next him and begin another conversation about herbal sleep aids and relaxation rituals.

Izuru’s waist is warm where Renji’s arm was wrapped around it. His legs are cramped from where Renji’s were tangled with his own. It’s a good feeling, one that Izuru likes to admire and he wishes he could do so right now without also wishing that Renji’s snoring didn’t feel like a fucking jackhammer on Izuru’s skull.

Narrow fingers massage the corners of Izuru’s temple, finding the pressure point where it most feels like knives are trying to press their way through his brain and cut to the outside of his scalp. These migraines have been absolutely wicked this week, enough so that Izuru has finally allowed Momo and Isane to use him as a guinea pig with their potions and elixirs.

(With mixed success. One creation actually did the trick in quieting his headaches, but had the side effect of an extremely drooly mouth and a ring of literal fire for hours. Nice try, ladies.)

Quietly as can be, Izuru crawls over Renji to the edge of the bed to touch his toes down on the carpeted floor. Renji frets over Izuru’s health, his sleeping and his eating, but with Renji almost completing his Witch apprenticeship he really can’t afford to get distracted. Izuru won’t wake him as he tiptoes towards the window.

Outside, a beautiful sunrise begins to sneak its way through the trees. It would be pretty if Izuru weren’t so criminally exhausted, or if the streaks of blood red across the sky didn’t strike him as so morbid.

Izuru pinches the bridge of his nose. When he closes his eyes he can recall the images, hazy and frustratingly vague like worn-out, old-timey film being projected onto the inside of his eyeballs. A windy meadow being dug up and turned into a decrepit cemetery. A field of wild wheat that becomes paved over and transforms into the supermarket where Izuru used to buy groceries. A child’s coat, pink and yellow, falling apart with age and then decaying in a landfall. None of these visions strike him as familiar, but all of them are vivid and have this upsetting mood that lasts with Izuru all morning.

Izuru chews his lips and glares at his ghostly reflection in the window. What happened to dreams about being naked in class like normal people?

The only part of Izuru’s dreams that made any kind of sense or had any kind of story was the one about a girl he didn’t recognize. She looked maybe five or six, with long, jet black hair and a little knife dangling from her hip. On her back she was carrying a baby all bundled up with ragged blankets, and in her eyes Izuru saw the kind of shadows he associated with yellow-eyed alley cats and pictures of black holes in space. She had such a serious look on such a young face, Izuru couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

That wasn’t really the part that unsettled him about the dream. What was unsettling was that through the curtains of her dark hair Izuru could see the pale of her thin neck, and the fresh, angry red scar on her throat. And for some reason, Izuru didn’t need to see the infant on her back to know there would be a scar splitting the child’s face from eyebrow to lip.

Izuru has never seen pictures of Unohana or Kenpachi as children. He’s not sure there are any, and from the way everyone else talks about them you would think that both adults popped out of the ground fully grown and throwing around the kind of unreal, godlike power Izuru has come to casually expect around this neighborhood. He doesn’t know why he would dream about them as little kids.

Or why it felt so eerily, creepily real.

Gnawing on his fingernail, Izuru considers his dreams. Would it be too odd to ask Unohana about her childhood, or if she did in fact grow up with Kenpachi? Or would she assume that he was being nosy, trying too hard to insert himself in something that isn’t his business?

No, there’s no need. Perhaps he was just thinking too much before falling asleep. Renji and Isane have been warning him not to get so stressed in the evening, even if it means missing out on observing some of Renji’s rituals.

There’s nothing good that can come out of obsessing, anyways.

-

At a casual glance, it can seem like the Coven is its own perfect, self-sufficient little bubble, tucked away from the rest of society. More than once, Izuru manages to trick himself into thinking that the rest of the non-Witch world has been some very long hallucination and he has really been here, living a peaceful existence in the woods, the entire time.

Imagine his surprise when he is helping Rukia wrangle some of the more ornery occupants of the greenhouse and he runs into Ikkaku being directed by an anxious Momo on how to load boxes upon boxes upon a tiny little thing of a truck bed.

“Careful, please! There’s frozen dogwood in there. Oh gods…” Momo chews on her knuckles and sweats as her help hoists a big crate over his head with a strong but admittedly unbalanced and wobbly grip.

With a grunt, Ikkaku sets the box back down on the ground. “A’right, fuck this,” he growls before taking a knee and slamming his palms into the dirt. At once, two pillars of the ground rise up like twin snakes and wrap around Ikkaku’s thick arms to create gauntlets made of dense earth. Armed and dangerous, he easily tosses the box up and onto the wagon as Momo squeaks and frets even more intensely.

Rukia shares a glance with Izuru over an armful of flowerpots, as if daring him to ask first. When Izuru staunchly refuses, Rukia pipes up, “What’s going on, you two?”

Momo rips herself away from the sight of Ikkaku continuing to hurl boxes long enough to give Rukia a relieved smile. “Hi, guys! Didn’t you hear? There’s supposed to be a festival in town today. Unohana said I could go in and tell fortunes.”

In a refreshing change of pace, Izuru enjoys some clarity. “I remember those. I would always see fortune-tellers on school trips to cultural festivals and things. Mediums or Witches would read your future for you.”

“Did you ever do it?”

“Yes. Apparently, I’m advised to avoid birds and high places. She didn’t say whether to avoid them together or separately, though…”

“Do you guys wanna come with me? I could use a hand setting up the stand, and we can get festival food and stuff.” Momo cringes at an additional thud from behind her, and turns to snap at Ikkaku. “Now really! You’re just not even trying!” Ikkaku shrugs in the worst attempt at innocence Izuru has ever seen.

“Should we let Renji know where we’re going?” Izuru asks Rukia. He’s not sure how Renji would deal with a big crowd like that, all cluttered streets and all.

“Don’t worry ‘bout him, he’s busy.” Ikkaku pipes up from the cart, slapping dust off of his stone gauntlets while Momo flutters around the cart. “I left Yumi in charge of his training for now. He’ll probably keep Renji running around all day.”

“Truly, no rest for the wicked.” Rukia snorts. With more enthusiasm, she elbows Izuru around her flowerpot. “Yeah, let’s go! You can show me what it’s like on the non-Witch side of one of these things.”

Which… Izuru severely doubts, because he for the life of him can’t think of what Rukia would enjoy about being a regular, non-magical person aside from watching other people do magic. But if that’s going to be her daytrip.

Izuru climbs up into the passenger seat of the car, then scoots aside for Rukia to perch next to him. On the other side, Ikkaku gives Momo a stern warning about driving safety. “Unohana will kill my ass dead if anything happens to this piece a’ junk.” Then hands her a key with a tarantula charm on the keyring and they’re off just like that.

One of the things that really divides children from adults is the ability to realize that when you’ve been to one festival you’ve basically been to all of them. It can still be fun, but there’s a basic similarity in all of the tents, the vendors, the stands selling things that have been deep-fried.

More than a little proudly, Izuru considers the stand that he and Rukia helps Momo set up to be the most colorful and beautiful out of anything else on the fairgrounds. It’s a nice little tent with racks of charms Momo made on display. Izuru doesn’t ask what they’re supposed to be, because they’re probably not even what they are.

Momo is, for better or worse, a little more liberal in her spell usage. For example, the bracelet with petals of primrose that is supposed to be a ‘good luck charm’ is actually a fragrant potion that makes one feel more confident in oneself. “So it’s not technically wrong!” Momo chastises him when Izuru gives her a dubious look.

They are all set up long before the evening falls and lanterns are lit. Rukia even manages to coerce Izuru into buying funnel cakes and cider with her, and before long it’s a peaceful evening of watching curious patrons wander up and offer their money to Momo for her wisdom and guidance. Izuru’s tummy is warm and full, and Momo’s voice is as soothing as cool silk and fresh sea breeze.

“This card says you might find difficulty with love in the future. You know, it’s important to work hard, but it’s just as important to make time for yourself and your loved ones…” Momo’s cards float in front of her face like a screen towards her customer, held in place by her slender hands willing them to hover elegantly.

At once and very peculiarly, the cards begin to waiver in the air. A shadow, like a streak of darkness, passes overhead suddenly and in the absence of light Momo’s cards collapse onto the table. Her face turns downwards into a deep frown of vexation.

Dragging himself up from his paper cup of cider, Izuru looks to see what apparently broke Momo’s concentration. And under the yellow light of not-quite-set sun, Izuru is pretty sure that his eyes are playing tricks on him, because there’s no way he could be looking at a procession of individuals dressed in long, white robes ringed with silver out in broad daylight.

About a dozen individuals dressed this way come marching down the main road, two of them holding blue lanterns in their hands. Despite the robes, they don’t look very intimidating — Izuru sees several of them wave and shake hands with over festival goers — but something about them seems a little off. Maybe in the way they smile, their thin, pink lips strained and teeth flashing.

He recognizes them, of course. Even without being religious, Izuru knows enough about the Church to recognize the priests on sight.

“I didn’t even know the Church made appearances so far out from the city,” Izuru comments into Rukia’s ear.

“Me, neither,” Rukia replies, with both an air of disinterest and a voice so booming Izuru only has to assume that she’s compensating for him somehow. She speaks through a mouth of cotton candy. “Wonder what they’re up to.” And then they are forced to move a little to the side to make room for a new customer of Momo’s.

“Oh, yes we’re open! Please, help yourself!” Momo beams and sweeps her hands over the cards, shuffling them and snapping right back into her usual sunny demeanor.

Rukia keeps a cautious, heavy eye on the white robes, and Izuru feels compelled to do the same. The representatives of the Church pitch their own tent within view of Momo’s, closer towards the center of the fairgrounds. Momo had selected something on the outskirts, under the argument that doing so made them seem a little more mysterious and self-sufficient. For the Church’s black, blue, and silver banner going up and immediately catching the eyes, it appears that they are obviously going in a different marketing direction.

Reception on the clergy members appears to be mixed. Some people walk right up and begin talking to the priests, while others give their tent a wide berth. That strikes Izuru as odd, as even the people who give Momo’s tent the suspicious whale eyes that Izuru has come to expect on any Witchcraft topics seem to take it in stride, accepting the rustic charm of the occasional magic user.

“They’re awfully… friendly over there, huh?” Rukia observes the way the priests flutter with their long sleeves catching the breeze like butterflies. Izuru looks over at her to respond and nearly experiences what he thinks is his soul leaving his mortal body when he spots a looming shadow of white sliding up behind her. “Holy shit.”

“Hi, there!” A voice that sounds far too unbelievably chipper chirps at them, folding his hands in his long, white, linen sleeves. “Checking out the tent, huh? It’s looking pretty good this year.”

Izuru blinks at a boy that doesn’t look much older than himself, and is surely too young to be wearing the cloth of a clergyman. He has sandy brown hair, a disarmingly blinding smile, and a face one might describe as ‘generically handsome’. That person might be Izuru, who considers Renji to be the height of physical attractiveness, but Izuru considers his tastes to be pretty refined.

“Um, yes!” Izuru squeaks when Rukia doesn’t immediately answer. “We were just looking at it. Sure seems busy over here.”

“Oh, well. Maybe a little bit.” The boy laughs a little, like he’s trying to be embarrassed or modest. His cheeks are round and full and red from smiling, and his grin only seems to waiver as his eyes make a cursory glance over his immediate surroundings. “I’m sure everyone is very engaged here with this…”

The boy’s gaze hover over Momo’s tent, and leaves a moment of silence just long enough to make the pause uncomfortable. Rukia raises an eyebrow. “Fortune-telling?” she supplies, her voice tight like a teacher supplying an answer to a particularly slow student.

This finally catches Momo’s attention, looking up from where she is helping an older woman perusing the selection of memory charms. Her brown eyes light up immediately, “Oh, yes! Do you want your fortune told?”

“Fortunes told?” The priest holds his hand up to his face, hiding his mouth behind his billowing sleeve. “How strange! Forgive me, but doesn’t that sound a little… impossible?”

Izuru can nearly feel Rukia’s body temperature rising next to him, and Momo flushes a little before waving her hand dismissively. “Oh, it’s mostly for fun, you know? You don’t get the whole picture, just little bits and pieces. It wouldn’t be fun to just know the entire future just like that, so I get a vague sense of the person’s history, personality and soul, and tell them what they’re going to do.”

“I see. Isn’t that technically lying, then?”

“It’s not lying,” Momo says, and there is a tenser edge in her smile than before. “If I’m always right. Would you like to give it a try and see for yourself?”

The priest blanches slightly, and Izuru can only assume that if he has a bare ounce of intelligence it’s because he has sensed that he’s overstayed his welcome. “I don’t want to take up your time. Besides, I had really better be getting back to my friends by now. Feel free to some visit if you have some time!”

“Yeah, thank you.” Izuru watches the robed figure flit back into the crowds, under the lanterns that are just beginning to be lit. He’s filled with a strange sense of… something. Protectiveness, maybe, on Momo’s behalf.

It occurs to Izuru that to all of these people, to the rest of the world from now on, he is the among the Witches ‘in-group’. At the Coven, it is always so obvious to Izuru how much of an outsider he is, with his inability to do magic and his not being raised as a Witchling. He feels it in his bones, every time he watches Renji or Rukia or the others do something incredible, and for just a minute he forgets himself and thinks ‘I wish I could do that.’

Out here, nobody knows Izuru can’t do a lick of Witchcraft to save his own life. They can’t tell him apart from Rukia or Momo, all huddled together around Momo’s magic cards and truth spells. He might as well be just as magical as they are, for all anybody else knows, and that fills him with an odd sense of pride.

As the drop in conversation after that encounter slowly descends into uncomfortable silence, Rukia busies herself with rearranging some of Momo’s displays. Izuru watches for signs of anger, for the way Rukia’s lips flatten into a thin, grave line like she does when she’s frustrated, but her focus is on her hands and her hands are on shuffling candles.

Momo does an excellent job at not seeming a bit rattled, tenting her fingers and turning back to her customer with a glowing smile. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Can I help you find anything?” But the shift in mood is unmistakable, and Izuru doesn’t miss the way Momo’s brows rise under her bangs when her patrons suddenly have other places to be very quickly. “Oh, of course. Feel free to come again later. I’ll be here for the rest of the evening.”

Of course, being a family means staying together through things. Whether it’s through thin or through thick. Shaking off the instinct to glance anxiously around, Izuru summons his focus to smile gently at Momo.

“Hey, you’ve been at this for a while. If you like, I can take over for a little bit while you take a break.”

“Oh, Izuru! That’s so sweet!” She looks at him, and in her smiling eyes Izuru can clearly see she’s been working long enough to earn a break. Her pink lips twist in a frown. “Oh, but if somebody wants a fortune…”

Rukia throws up her hand. “I’ll come get you if somebody asks. It’s starting to get dark, anyways. I think people will mostly be interested in shopping now.”

“Alright, alright. You guys win.” Momo puts her palms out in a show of submission, shuffling around Izuru to make room for him behind the counter. Momo is quite a bit shorter than he is, so Izuru is a little cramped and looming behind the front table.

From his position, Izuru can see pretty far ahead. Not into the center of the festival, which is on his right side, but across the outskirts. To the other quieter and more distant tents sticking out of the flat ground like chimneys over rooftops, past the boundary of the festival to the suburban parks and convenience stores and houses with their back yards.

There is an entire world of people out there, a world that is huge and vast and fascinating. And though Izuru is sure it’s full of the same beauty that his parents spent the better parts of their lives pursuing, he also knows it must also contain people who don’t understand his adoptive family, and him by extension.

Izuru has things to protect here. A loyalty to his Coven that is perhaps as strong as the familial one they all feel for each other.

The boundary between the festival and the rest of the neighborhood is marked by a chain-link fence, just visible in the dimming light from Izuru’s spot. In the flicker of a lantern light he sees a shadow run over it. Like the streak of a black cat, but much larger.

Izuru blinks, and when his eyes find the darkness again he realizes the streak is a human figure, wrapped in dark clothing. The black robes must have made Izuru not notice him. And as Izuru is still trying to decipher the full shape of the person, they slowly glide towards the center of the festival and out of Izuru’s line of sight, blocked off by the edge of Momo’s tent.

A stabbing pain appears in Izuru’s right temple, which he lifts his fingers towards to rub the discomfort away. His migraine is returning.

-

Isane made some kind of balm for him. It’s made out of some kind of special beeswax and lavender petals the ground up scales of a rare kind of fish that gives it this silvery quality. It was blessed by her God of Deer, a deity of patience and wildflowers, on the first Sunday of the month for three months, and it smells like sleep.

Renji helps Izuru put it on before bed. Well, ‘helps’ might be a gentle word for it, since he has been adamantly hovering over Izuru for the past several nights, like a bloodhound but specifically for Izuru’s insomnia. If Izuru’s insomnia were a criminal stealing away in the night with his sleep, Renji would be the lead detective with a magnifying glass and a big corkboard full of pictures he connected with red string.

“Sit still! You’re wiggly as hell,” Renji chides and rubs the balms under Izuru’s eyes with his thumb. The pads of his fingers are warm and rough, and Izuru has to concentrate on pouting instead of smiling when they touch his face. “If this doesn’t work I’mma start knocking you out myself. Wouldn’t take three months to prepare that, at least.”

Izuru closes his eyes as the sweet-smelling material sinks into his skin, and when Renji pulls away he feels the hot mug of blackberry and honey tea he had prepared pushed into his hands. “Maybe you should. It would be an honor to knocked into unconsciousness by you.”

A snort leaves Renji’s nose as he puts the lid back on the container of balm. He fails to disguise the touch of gentleness Izuru sees in the corners of his lips and his eyes. “Just cuz’ I joke about that doesn’t mean you get to.”

“You’re cute when you’re fussy.” Izuru puts his hand on Renji’s, pushing down just enough to make him drop the balm and places a kiss on the high arch of Renji’s cheek. “Try to relax tonight.”

It sounds ironic, coming from him, but Izuru follows his own advice. Every evening is sweet when it involves Izuru tucked in next to Renji. It’s been a long time since Renji pushed Izuru’s bed across the room and up against his own, but Izuru wouldn’t have minded being compressed between Renji and the wall in a twin size.

He enjoys the solidness of Renji sleeping beside him, the deep rise and fall of his breath. Izuru lines his body up against Renji’s and places his head on top of Renji’s chest. Underneath his ear he hears the warm and lively thump-ump of a righteous and healthy heart, and almost immediately Izuru stumbles into a deep sleep.

This is where the trouble begins.

In Izuru’s dreams, there is smoke. There is smoke, and fire, and embers flying out of the flames like orange teeth trying to find their purchase in the vulnerable flesh of a green ground. The smoldering fire devours its way through everything and anything, and Izuru watches it gnaw through the crackling, wooden remains of many buildings.

And among the swirling fingers of the fire, Izuru sees Renji. He sees the broad back of Renji facing him, and his long hair turning black as the heat singes it viciously. And if this were not a dream, this would be the part where Izuru calls for Renji, to try and snap him into his sense and leave the burning hellscape that surrounds them, but because this is a dream Izuru is voiceless and weightless and bodiless. He is unable to do anything. There is music in Izuru’s ears like a tuneless, rhythmless choir, carrying one sour note on one sour breath.

A pair of hands the color of old blood wrap around Renji’s shoulders as if to try and drag him down into the piles of ash and debris. And, in the dream-like state of a dream, Izuru instantly knows that the owner of those hands is Death.

Awakeness strikes Izuru with a cold and airless gasp, and with wild eyes Izuru looks around the ceiling of his apartment.

It’s quiet. There’s no noise, no crack of fire popping in his ears. The sudden sense of having a body and weight nails Izuru against the mattress, he is alive and alert in the unbroken peace of the middle of the night. Next to him, Renji snores gently. Still rising and falling with the rhythm of his breathing.

Izuru’s stomach churns, his skin feels clammy and cold even underneath heavy blankets and the warm body at his side. Unsettled, uncertain, he pulls his legs up to his body and folds his hands over his belly and fails to fall back into a restful slumber.

-

Because Izuru has grown up with Rukia more so than most of the other Witchlings, it fails to surprise anyone that they’ve become close. Izuru knows her childhood quirks just as intimately as he does Renji’s. He watched her face grow from it’s girlish softness to that of a mature woman. He is as familiar with her as he is with the sun and the moon.

That doesn’t mean that he knows everything about her. How much can you know about celestial bodies hurtling through space millions of miles away? Ask yourself that question, and you might have a better idea of what it’s like to know Rukia Kuchiki.

“A sister, huh?”

Renji gives Rukia a raised brow as he pushes his broom around her’s. Is that a whiff of jealousy Izuru detects? He’ll just pretend not to notice as he washes down the windows of the house.

Rukia huffs, but even through her bluster Izuru can see vexed concern on her face. “It’s not like I knew! I just got the letter in today. Besides, I’m not even sure I want a sister.”

“Oh?” Izuru fails to wrangle his curiosity. He looks at Rukia expectantly, and when she matches him with a dry look of her own he suddenly becomes very concerned with a spot on the windowpane.

“Sure, I mean…” Rukia balances on the handle of her broom, and Izuru can see the nervous wringing of her hands the way bones shift anxiously under her skin. “I don’t really need an adult sister at this point in my life, you know? I have you guys.”

Izuru can’t fault her there. If he were to find out he had some long-lost sibling, of course he would want to investigate. That’s just who he is. But Rukia is not him, and Izuru can’t really imagine Rukia being happy balancing two lives inside and outside the family she already has.

“And- Not only that!” Rukia’s face sours deeply, voice so venomous that even Renji stops what he’s doing to carefully observe her. “She has a husband! She married into the Kuchiki family! What am I supposed to do? Just pop over for dinner?”

Immensely noble families like the Kuchikis are, of course, not Izuru’s area of expertise. Maybe his grandmother or even his parents would have been more familiar, recalling the days when the Kira family was more wealthy or more prominent than it is now with only one remaining heir. But he doesn’t need to be an archeologist of family lineages to read the newspaper.

The Kuchikis are extraordinarily wealthy, and extraordinarily old. They often make the front page for their dedication to preserving classic literature and art, hanging up gilded and glittering artifacts in long, regal hallways of their expensive galleries. They are curiously not as invested in the political scene as much as the Shihoins or Aizens are, which only makes them seem more archaic and mysterious.

And, naturally, being a family steeped in tradition, they have strong religious ties. Izuru can’t recall a time where the name ‘Kuchiki’ was not somehow tied to massive financial contributions to the Church.

Izuru shrugs his shoulders, cringing weakly. “Well… maybe she’s alright. She wants to meet you, after all. Why would she do that if she didn’t accept you?”

“She doesn’t know she wants to meet me yet,” Rukia points out, viciously scrubbing a rough patch of floor. “And what about her husband and his family? You really think they’d want a Witch in the family?”

“Um. Yes! Of course they would, you’re perfect!” Renji explains with a burst of frustration, throwing his hands up and dropping his broom with a light ‘clack’. “You’re, like, the smartest and prettiest Witch ever, and you do awesome magic stuff! Of course they wanna keep you. If I didn’t know you, I’d adopt you!”

Rukia pouts and turns her glare towards Izuru, who can only recede slightly into his sweater and nod at Renji. “He has a point.”

He can see the gears turning in Rukia’s dark eyes when she gazes down at the cracks in the floorboard, scared and guilty. Rukia is one of the most fair and kind souls that Izuru has ever met; her razor sharp tongue is practically a bonus. She also has the chance to do what none of her peers may ever get to do to do and encounter another member of her bloodline.

As Rukia’s thoughts twist and turn, so does the charge of pent-up Witch’s emotional energy fill the air. Underneath Izuru’s feet, the planks of wood begin to whine. The ones closest to Rukia’s shoes attempt to curl upwards at the edges and fight against the nails holding them down. The room suddenly fills with the scent of gingerbread and running water. “Rukia.”

She looks up, and at once the floorboards lie still again. “Sorry…” Rukia gnaws on the inside of her cheek. “I guess not meeting Hisana and her husband would be ungrateful or something. And- and maybe they actually are really nice.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Renji squeezes Rukia’s shoulder, but Izuru hears the lack of confidence in his voice. How much would it kill Renji if something happened to Rukia by her own family?’

But no. Izuru shakes that thought out of his head. It’s only a simple meeting, after all.

-

Wording Witchcraft down to a definition is more difficult than one might think. Izuru has to rely on Renji for translations, to share his secrets let Izuru see the world through his eyes.

“Well, like, it kind of feels like an extension of your own body.” Renji explains once, sitting sideways on the bed so his long hair is drapping down to the floor while he tries to wrestle a book closed that barks and occasionally drools. “When I move stuff or change things, it’s like moving an arm or a leg.”

Izuru watches him and slurps ramen noodles straight from the pot at their fold-away kitchen table. “A lot of legs,” he says dryly between mouthfuls of noodles. “But that’s not how it works for more complicated spells, is it?”

“Nope.” Renji growls in frustration and the book growls back. Finally, Renji sits himself right side up on the bed, red hair sticking in every which way, and bops the book sternly on the nose to calm it now. “Yeah, I guess making something manifest or influencing people’s emotions takes more concentration. S’ probably for the best that those kinds of spells don’t last long anyways.”

This stands to Izuru’s observations. Momo’s confidence charms or relaxation spells barely lasts a few hours when activated. Renji, also being a very talented Witch, could probably cast spells just as good, but doesn’t really care enough about nudging people’s emotions this way or that or reading people’s fates enough to really build a skill of it.

Besides, magic has its limits for even the most powerful Witches. They see themselves as architects working with a very unique kind of toolset, using magic to manipulate the properties of what already is within a strict framework of rules. No matter if one can cast spells or move objects or not, some laws of nature are just universal for every creature.

At least, as far as anybody knows.

It has been roughly two months since Izuru’s sleep troubles started. Which may not seem like a lot of time, but for a man living on two hours of REM sleep and a stomach that can’t digest coffee, it’s a very hardening experience.

Measuring his breaths, Izuru tries to stretch out his inhales to match the much more relaxed rhythm of Renji sleeping beside him. He wants to be asleep. He desperately wants to be asleep, so badly he could cry from it.

The insomnia is beginning to get bad enough that Renji has suggested bunking with Ikkaku and Yumichika and letting Izuru have the bed to himself, and Izuru very much does not want that! He just wants to sleep.

He wants to, but he can’t. Because those nightmares- the startling visions and weird music and splitting headaches, will just come and rip him back into reality with only more distress and fear to show for it. Izuru removes the pillow from behind his head and wrenches it over his sore, tired eyes, cursing Renji’s gods and everyone else’s for his stupid, horrible brain that won’t let him just sleep. Just once, for a little while. Please.

All at once, the air becomes very, very, deathly cold. As if Izuru, body and bed and all, was just dropped into ice water and dragged into the chilling depths of the darkest part of the deepest ocean. Izuru feels it in his hands and his feet, in his gut and down to the core of him.

Slowly, Izuru lifts the pillow from his face and he sees blue. A gentle glow of blue is filling the room.

That cannot be good.

Sitting up, Izuru can only first assume that it’s a Witchcraft thing. He has never known Renji to use magic in his sleep, but it could be possible that Izuru’s stress is starting to have an effect on him too. Izuru looks with concern on the man slumbering next to him and gently presses a hand to his broad side to shake Renji awake. “Renji-”

He feels his heart leap into his throat, tears already beginning to sting his eyes in horror. Renji’s skin feels as cold and still and solid as stone. Izuru gets onto his knees in a beat, crouching over his lover and placing his ear up to Renji’s lips. Not a single puff of breath escapes him.  
Bony fingers run through Izuru’s hair, his panic at war with his denial. This has to be another nightmare. This isn’t real. It can’t be. Even if he feels so cold and this appears so vivid.

The light on Izuru’s back flickers, and he sees it dance across Renji’s unmoving shape through the crack in the curtains. His toes touch a floor like frosted glass underneath him as Izuru pulls apart the corner edge of the curtain.

That light. Distant like a falling star, or sunlight through rippling waves being seen from the underside of the ocean. Izuru recognizes that light, somehow and from somewhere. He must find answers. He must find a way to reverse this.

He comes out the door in his nightclothes — Izuru doesn’t know if it matters to spare a single second, but with Renji in that state he doesn’t care to risk it. Unless this is truly a dream, in which case it doesn’t matter anyways, right?

With bare feet Izuru bounds through the woods. Twigs and rocks tear at his feet and the vulnerable skin of his legs, but Izuru barely notices. He barely notices because he is more overwhelmed by the bizarre, unearthly silence. There is not an owl or a cricket or even the rustling of leaves to tell him anything is alive here. With black mud caking the soles of his feet, Izuru bounds over the creek. The rippling and frothy water is as still as a photograph, and when Izuru’s foot touches the surface it too is completely solid underneath him. Izuru darts across it like a bridge, his eyes staying on the source of that light.

The trees part and thin as Izuru leaves the woods at his back, passing the park where he and Renji and Rukia played as children. The years have rusted the playground into a ghost of its former self, faintly translucent in the glow that guides Izuru forwards. Like a light at the end of a dark tunnel, Izuru sprints across the cement and asphalt without thinking of the stones stinging his feet.

Down the road he can see nighttime birds caught in mid flight. Cars of people driving home late stopped in the middle of the street, with their drivers still looking intently at the road through the beam of their headlights, unmoving.

With skidding feet and micro-cuts under his toes, Izuru comes to a halt when the light finally becomes so bright he can’t keep looking ahead. With his hand outstretched to cover his eyes, the periphery becomes clear and Izuru notices he is standing in a field. This is the field where the festival that he went to with Rukia and Momo was held.

Squinting against the harsh white light, Izuru tries to see ahead. Darkness shaped like a claw rises and stifles the blinding glare like snuffing out a supernova, and Izuru sees the glimmer of blue still beaming through the shallow cracks of a tight fist.

The fist belongs to an arm, which belongs to a tall, lanky figure. With a cloak wrapped around them, it’s pushed to the side enough for Izuru to see a dark sweater and trousers underneath. If you took away the mysterious outerwear, Izuru would assume this was the outfit of a very lost librarian.

The light begins to flicker and fade, and Izuru sees a navy shimmer light up the face of the mysterious stranger. Is he really that pale and drained, or is that a trick of the light? Izuru stands, breathless and with goosebumps rising underneath his thin nightclothes, as the mysterious man looks at him with a grin like a skull.

“So you’re the one, ne?” His voice is soft like a whisper, but it booms against the silence in Izuru’s ears. “I’ve been waitin’ for you.”

When Izuru wakes up, he’s back in his own bed. There’s a pool of warm sunlight from the open window spreading across his belly, and the smell of Renji making french toast wafting around the room while the high static of birds chirping outside incessantly fills the room. The air is golden and rich with morning.

Izuru stares at the ceiling, feeling exhaustion in his bones and soreness in his legs. Underneath the warm embrace of the covers, blood from where the skin of his feet was rubbed raw begins to trickle down his heel and onto the bedsheets.

There is a name on Izuru’s tongue, as clear and as sharp as broken glass between his teeth.

-

Gin Ichimaru is a recluse, predictably an anomaly. A cursory search of the internet on the lone, crusty old computer in the library reveals that he is the Prophet of the Church. He has his own online encyclopedia page detailing his sparse public appearances and everything. Like a celebrity.

The word ‘Prophet’ leaves Izuru with more questions than answers. He tries to rack his brain for what knowledge he has absorbed about world religions to explain what a Prophet might do, and only really comes up with mental images of shimmering alters and mysterious ceremonies and sermons where the preaching of good morals and guilt-tripping lectures are held. In a battered old library book about linguistics, he learns that the word ‘prophet’ has meanings related to ‘teacher’, and they are supposed to be deeply connected with divine forces.

‘Prophet’ is also the root word of ‘prophecy’. Divinations of the future and the past.

Izuru licks the outside of his teeth and slides the book underneath the shelf in the library with the most dust and cobwebs.

“I’m going out for today,” he tells Renji, feeling the weight of his wallet and his coat and his good walking shoes dragging down his own body. Izuru squeezes Renji’s hand in his own. “Everyone has been a huge help, but I think it’s time I saw someone else about my sleep troubles.” Inconspicuous enough. You might even assume that Izuru was going to see a real doctor. Like a normal person would.

“Oh, okay,” Renji agrees, squeezing back. His hands are warm and smell like ink and ash from this morning’s ritual. Izuru can see the black stripes of tattoos spreading out further from Renji’s core as he is ever closer to fully completing his training. Sometimes they respond to Izuru’s touch, feeling his closeness. “Do you want me to come with you?”

Izuru shakes his head, and he feels guilt sit in the back of his throat all scratchy and heavy. “No, it’s fine. I’ll be back in the evening.”

That is all it takes. Izuru walks away and begins to hoist himself up the forest path and that’s all it took for him to lie to the most important person in his whole world.

He only knows of one Church in the district, and Izuru has the address written in pen on the flat side of his palm. It’s a tall, old building a few towns over, parked in the middle of the city with ivy crawling up the stone walls the color of teeth and a stained glass window like a teary eye sitting way up high above the door.

Looking upwards, Izuru touches his fingers to his temple. The searing pain of a migraine is back, and his vision starts to swim as colors and shapes become smeared. He sees, at once, the Cathedral as it is. He sees it as a plot of land with piles of bricks packed into organized piles and wet cement churning in a mixer. He sees it as an abandoned pile of rubble, crumbling with age. He sees, all at one time, all too much.

-

“I’m so glad you could make it, Izuru.”

Gin’s hands are cold where they grapple with Izuru’s, squeezing him vice-like. Despite the intimidating figure he cuts, swaddled in black robes and silver jewelry, looming at the altar at the end of the aisles of empty pews, the contorted grin on his face is almost comically unsettling. A little Uncanny Valley, even. Izuru is instantly reminded of movie posters where the villains are killer clowns from space.

The absurd mental image does just about nothing to calm his nerves, and Izuru reminds himself that he’s just here to visit. To ask questions.

“Thank you for… reaching out to me. I think.” Izuru can’t stop his eyes from rolling over the inside of the cathedral. It looks like there was a ceremony recently that hadn’t been cleaned up yet, the petals of wilting flowers beginning to droop over their pots.

“My pleasure, my pleasure! Come ‘ere, please!” With an iron grip, Gin steers Izuru to sit with him in one of the first pews and practically shoves him down on the hard wooden seat.

Rearranging his gangly limbs, Gin collapses besides Izuru with all the elegance of a rusty folding chair. His knees are spread out, making convenient rests for his elbows and failing to make him look any less spidery.

“Now.” Gin pulls back a short strand of silver hair, and manages to inauspiciously flash a handful of silver rings and bracelets in Izuru’s face. “Make yourself at home. I wanna know all about you.”

Izuru tries to keep himself small in his seat, out of the way of Gin’s sprawling posture. Is this really the kind of person who is supposed to him him with his strange experiences? He seems more like a conman than the man that Izuru saw that night that time stopped.

“I heard that- Well, I mean. You’re a Prophet, aren’t you?” Izuru stumbles over his words, and blushes at his own bluntness. “You… see things. Things that other people don’t see.”

“Oh dear, young Izuru.” Gin sighs and waves a scolding finger, giving Izuru the impression that Gin thinks Izuru is a small child who is asking embarrassing, inappropriate questions. “You don’t really wanna know about that, do ya’? You just wanna know how you did that thing on the night that we met. How you stopped time, and how I knew how t’ find you.”

The muscles in Izuru’s body turn coiled and tense. He hadn’t realized how stiff he was until Gin mentioned that time really did stop. But… “What do you mean… ‘I’ stopped time?”

Gin’s lips pull back, wide and showing an unsettling lack of teeth. It’s frustrating, how everything seems to please him more and more. Bony fingers lace together. “You ain’t just here for me, lil’ Izuru. You’re the one who’s been having visions. Strange dreams ‘bout people and places. You feel fine and dandy one minute then a headache’s got you knocked onto yer ass the next. It’s all right here, in your pretty little head.”

One long, jewel-adorned fingernail taps Izuru on the forehead between his eyebrows. “I know all about that, cuz’ I went through all that noise myself. Wasn’t fun, I promise ya’.”

“You–” Izuru’s voice turns to a stammer, and as the gears in his head turn while the sour taste of bile rises in his stomach. “You went through the same things…”

“That’s right Izuru. Yer gonna be a Prophet.” Gin’s voice is sing-song sweet. “It’s written in your destiny.”

The irony strikes Izuru over the head before anything else does. Gods, he’s so foolish- being so wistful of magic and powers, wishing that he himself could have an inkling of the talent that his Witch friends possessed. Why wouldn’t things turn out this way? Why wouldn’t fate decide to dump the most burdensome form of power onto his lap like pouring boiling oil right into his stupid little hands?

No, this can’t be right. Izuru feels his breathe in his own ears, hot and heavy, as his headache begins to return. “I’m… I’m sorry, Mr. Ichimaru. I think you’re mistaken. I’m just sick.”

Izuru pulls himself to his feet, standing up and suddenly his headache skitters from the back of his skull to behind both eyes with pain so intense Izuru thinks he’s going to faint. Even as he stands, he must have blacked out for a few seconds, because Izuru doesn’t remember Gin standing up to approach him.

“Gods don’t make mistakes.” As his smile doesn’t shift from his face, Gin’s voice becomes strained and punctuated. More forceful. More intense, each individual word slamming into Izuru like physical blows. “But more than that, I don’t make mistakes, Lil’ Izuru.”

The colors begin to blur again in Izuru’s vision. It feels like an invisible hand is squeezing down on his chest, and without knowing how or why Izuru is sure that Gin is doing it.

The only thing that Izuru can see clearly is Gin, but even he begins to change shape. His hair, his clothes and even his body turns into hazy smoke that swim in and out of solidness. Izuru sees him as he strides up to the podium, turning to face a packed building full of devoted followers who hang on his every word. He sees Gin dressed up in expensive clothes and having dinner at a long table full of glittering, austere people who are passing money inauspiciously across the table underneath their diamond rings. He sees Gin as a young man, about the age Izuru is right now, looking younger and rounder with youth but no less sinister, with blood dripping down his neck from an uncertain source.

Izuru puts his hands up to his face, pressing his heels down on his eyes and biting through a grimace. “What– what are you doing? Stop it!”

“What do you see?” Gin asks, voice suddenly much more gentle. As if Izuru would forget that harsh tone and vile attitude he had on just a moment before.

“You know what I see!” Izuru spits and puts all his pain into a glare between his cracked fingers. “Are you the reason this has been happening to me? Why I can’t sleep?”

Gin laughs a little. It sounds like a hollow bell with no ringer. “No, no, Izuru. That’s all your own powers comin’ in. I gave them a lil boost, but it’s all you.”

Izuru swallows and looks down at the stone floor. These aren’t powers, they’re a disease. What will the others think when Izuru tells them? That he’s a freak? That he’s doing to leave them for this horrible place and this horrible man?

Will they make Renji kick him out? Or will it be even worse if he doesn’t?

“An’ you know what’s more, right?” Gin’s voice is far too close now, and in the corner of his eye Izuru sees that offputting expression almost repulsively close. “They’re getting stronger. That little trick with time was your growth spurt. The visions’ll get worse, too. Some folks just about lose their minds from the stress of it all.”

That iron grip forces itself on Izuru again, those ropey fingers sinking into his shoulder so tight. Like Gin is trying to tear him open and fish around inside him. “But not you, Lil’ Izuru. Cuz’ I can help you. Teach you t’ control your powers and even use them to your advantage.”

It’s a miracle that Izuru receives anything that Gin is saying at that point, his thoughts are racing too fast for him to process. Izuru’s hands grip the sides of his head, like he could squeeze this pain and these fears back inside his brain if he tried.

Is this what his life is going to be? Hiding his visions and his headaches every day just to stop everyone from worrying about a problem that will never be fixed? Lying awake all night with horrible images lurking behind his eyes? Knowing what he really is — some anomaly that belongs in a moldy old building like this, collecting mildew? Izuru’s throat closes up. He feels woozy and clammy and chilled.

Gin’s voice comes to Izuru like he is speaking underwater. His hand begins to float up to cup Izuru’s jaw. “Aww… calm down, lil’ one–”

Immediately, Izuru feels his arm move to slap that hand away from his face, but the contact of skin to skin never lands. All at once, the universe twists all around Izuru, warping as if it’s being sucked into a black hole. The walls and the floor and the furniture all bend into a huge swirling spiral.

When the greater sense of nausea passes, Izuru blinks and realizes that this room is not arranged the same way it was before. Something about it is off. The pews, the altar, even the pillars, he realizes, have all sunk about half a foot into the stone floor. Like the solid rock had momentarily turned into quicksand before shifting back the way it had been.

Gin is looking upwards at him, then passes a disapproving look down at his own feet. His is almost up to his knees in the stone. The Prophet even manages to look a little angry as he cleanly hoists his foot up and out of the floor, passing his body through it as if he were a ghost. Izuru watches, his emotions now firmly tied in a tangled knot inside his chest, as Gin pulls himself back up to his full looming height and wags his skeletal index finger at Izuru again.

“This is what I’m talking about!” His voice is lilting again, back to Izuru being a slow child. “If ya’ don’t control your powers, they’ll eat you whole. Then you’ll be all alone with nobody who can help you.”

It doesn’t take Izuru a great logical leap to know that ‘nobody who can help you’ actually means ‘I won’t help you’.

His voice works without his permission, Izuru spits out a hollow, “I need to go,” and spins on his heels to start a very undignified sprint towards the door.

“Take some time to think about it!” Gin cordially shouts at his back, as if Izuru weren’t running full steam away from him and had just excused himself from tea. “But you oughta’ know about people who try to get in the way of a new Prophet’s destiny to fulfill their job. ‘Specially for the abominations playing around with their lil’ dark magic.”

Izuru reaches the door in time to turn around and see one last glimpse of Gin. In Izuru’s vision, Gin is glowing red around his body and under his skin, like a furnace about to explode. Smoke pours from his eyes and his beaming mouth in a gruesome death mask of a face. “It never ends well for ‘em.”

-

It goes without saying that there is a lot for Izuru to process on the train ride back to his hometown.

Curled tightly into the stiff train seat, he tries to sink into his coat and wish that these so-called burgeoning ‘powers’ would just let him disappear into the void once and for all. In his pocket he finds a cookie made by the dual team of Momo and Rukia, but of course Izuru is lacking any sort of appetite.

Okay, so. Let him break this down step-by-step.

Izuru is destined to be a Prophet. At least, he is if he believes Gin. That makes it sound even more outlandish, but the list of other explanations is very lacking. After all, what Izuru is doing can’t be considered magic because magic is a study, and he has no background in Witchcraft or spellcasting or anything like that.

Maybe it really is some kind of coming-of-age sudden awakening, then. Maybe Izuru just has these abilities now, and has to learn to live with them. Okay. When he puts it like that, it doesn’t seem so bad. He can still do all the things he likes to do, living with Renji and helping out with Momo in the bookstore and Isane and Unohana in the greenhouse. No big deal.

As for… the rest of it.

Izuru thinks about Gin again, which is probably always a mistake. When he first saw him on that night, calling out to Izuru in his moment of panic with a blue light, Izuru thought he had found some kind of hero or savior who was going to reveal all the answers and somehow none of those answers would be painful or daunting or awful.

Of course he didn’t. Of course, Izuru knows Gin is trying to manipulate him, maybe even take advantage of him with his doomsaying and thinly veiled threats. Even if Gin can really help Izuru control his powers, there obviously has to be a price for that help.

With an ache in his core, Izuru’s thoughts flit back to Renji. As they tend to always do sooner or later. Renji will want to protect Izuru, maybe even going as far to go up against Gin himself in Izuru’s stead. And Gin is only a very public and revered figure with the power to manipulate time, space, and also may have actually killed a person if Izuru’s visions of him were accurate.

No. Keeping Renji as far away from Gin as possible is the clear priority here. Even if it means keeping Renji away from Izuru.

When Izuru gets home it is already evening, and the Coven is quiet. The glow from Unohana’s cottage rolls over Izuru’s shoulder, watching the fish school across the painted walls.

He enters his building, going upstairs and fishing out the key to his and Renji’s loft. There are no lights when he enters, though the room is just as cluttered and messy as when he left. There are only a few things missing, those being Renji, the spellbox from his desk, and the first aid kit that Izuru keeps by the sink.

Retying his boot laces, Izuru heads back outside. This time, he notices distinct footprints in the paper-thin layer of snow leading away from the door and into the thicker part of the woods, where the bare trees are clustered closer together like crooked teeth.

It’s a short hike to follow the footsteps, and Izuru tastes the overpowering sulfurous smell of magic before he sees the yellow lantern filtering through the naked branches. Before long, he sees Renji very underdressed for the weather in a thin, long-sleeved t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

Facing Renji’s back, Izuru can see blood oozing and dripping down the heel of Renji’s large palm onto the snow and dying it pink. The ground and trees all around him have the browning streaks of runes written in blood across their surfaces, written in definite curves and angles to speak a language that Izuru has only vaguely been able to pick up on. The language they speak now is about loyalty and admiration.

Renji is just wrapping up his training and stepping into the role of being a full Witch, and as such his powers are growing exponentially. Izuru watches with rapt attention the way that the nighttime shadows seem to wrap around him, caressing the outline of Renji’s figure in the lantern glow.

The tattoos on Renji’s biceps, still wet and slick where blood wants to escape the skin, slides up the underside of his arm to wrap around his hand. With one probing, inky tendril, the stripe slides over the fresh cut on his palm and seals the skin back together like tugging on a zipper. When it retracts, it leaves only a little puff of steam and a thin, red line across the softest part of Renji’s inner palm.

It curls around Izuru, too. The shadows of the trees melting into the forest sense him close- or rather, sense Renji sensing him close. Black tendrils reaching out in rays from Renji’s feet to slip and crawl up Izuru’s own shoes and curl around his ankle. They pull him close.

Even out in the snow, Renji is warm where Izuru presses his face and hands against his wide back. Izuru can feel him through the thin cotton of his shirt, alive and welcoming. Can feel where the wind has put tangles in his long, red hair where Izuru reaches up to brush it.

Renji’s tendrils are still reaching, sliding off of Renji and across Izuru’s body like the writhing of snakes. It’s a strangely comfortable feeling, being cradled by another person’s energy. Izuru certainly doesn’t mind being pulled close to Renji.

“You’re very cuddly tonight,” Renji observes, ignoring the way his magic pulls Izuru flush to his back. Izuru can hear the smirk in his voice, the warmth behind the edge that is specially for him.

Izuru exhales deeply and inhales a fresh, comforting breath of Renji’s scent. “You’re going to get horribly sick out here. I need to protect you.” Izuru’s smile fits perfectly against the curve of Renji’s spine. “Who were you talking to?”

Renji points upwards towards the full moon. “Asking her to keep her eye on you. Somebody’s gotta.”

“I’m sure she has more important things to worry about.” Izuru feels Renji’s tendrils recede, sinking back under his clothes as a pair of very human and very sturdy arms replace them, turning to Izuru is facing Renji’s chest.

“Nah.” The lantern goes out with a ‘pop’ in its glass case, and the evening is again dark and purple. “C’mon, I wanna go home.”

-

It’s almost a relief that Izuru doesn’t plan on sleeping tonight. He doesn’t need to go through the sleeping exercises and whole ordeal of clearing his mind. Not that he could, even if he wanted to. He even visits Unohana’s house before bed to ask her for more of that sleeping balm, just to assuage any worries Renji might have.

In his boxers and nightshirt, Izuru slides his eyes closed and silently counts the pauses between Renji’s breaths. Waiting for it to slow into deepen, husky heaves and gentle snores, one gangly arm slung over Izuru’s hip like they’re connected by the joint.

Izuru keeps his fingers curled tight into the bed sheet, tense and alert. He doesn’t allow himself to focus on the weight of the person in bed next to him or the way it feels to have someone wrapped around his body. Every inch of him is tight and untouchable, as if he himself could become a ghost.

When he’s finally sure that Renji is deeply asleep, Izuru waits even longer. After that, he tests his weight against the mattress underneath him. It dips, slowly, tensely, gradually as he slides out from underneath Renji’s arm, lifts himself off the lip of the metal frame. Tiptoeing across the floor, Izuru finds his pants discarded conveniently close to the bed.

Sliding his palms over his frame, Izuru mentally counts all the things he’ll need. His wallet? Sure. Even if he doesn’t have money, it would be nice if he had his ID on him in the event that something unfortunate happened. Potential emergencies and misfortunes cycle through Izuru’s brain as he slips into his sneakers, ever closer to the door and the final escape.

Standing with his hand over the knob, Izuru has exactly a few scant seconds to almost regret that there’s nothing to stop him when something clinks next to his ear. Eyes wide and alarmed, Izuru looks to see his house and room keys spinning around their key ring in midair like helicopter propellers.

Izuru looks back to the bed, where Renji’s dark, brown eye is cracked open to watch Izuru. It lingers on him, glowing through the parting in his curtain of red hair spread out across the pillow.

“Forgot something?” Renji’s voice is thick with sleep, and it breaks Izuru’s heart to know he won’t be back. Stifling his reluctance, Izuru catches the keys in his palm and shoves them in his pocket.

“Sorry for waking you.”

“Where’re you going?”

Izuru swallows, and feels himself heaving with self-hate. If he told Renji the truth, he won’t be able to protect him. But the way Renji looks at him now, upwards through the soft lack of light and searching for honesty he doesn’t know is being kept from him, Izuru already feels like he’s failed to be the protector he should have been. “Out for a walk.” In a stunning lack of conversational wit, he adds lamely, “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Want me to come with you?”

“No, it’s okay.” Don’t think. Don’t feel. He just needs to go through the motions. “Go back to sleep, baby. I’ll be back when you wake up.”

Renji fails to look entirely convinced, and for one dreaded second Izuru thinks Renji will argue and tell Izuru to come back to bed and they will work on a new cure in the morning. If he does, Izuru isn’t sure his willpower will be strong enough to hold out, especially when he does so badly want to return to the sheets.

“Okay. Don’t take too long, though.”

“I won’t.” Izuru releases an exhale at the same time the knot in his gut twists, and it’s beyond painful. Thankfully, the sound of the door swinging open on his hinges can cover the scratchiness of his voice. “Sweet dreams.”

-

“Aw, Lil’ Izuru!”

Gin’s smile still shows as little of his teeth as possible, lips pulled back to reveal mostly his tongue. He tents his long, knobby fingers together, nail to nail. On his knuckle, Izuru observes a flash of blue. In perfect turquoise, a carving of a snake swallows a bird. “So you changed your mind after all, hmmm?”

Izuru doesn’t grace Gin with the dignity of an answer, expression flattened under his hood pulled up around his ears.

He makes himself a promise — no matter what Gin does or how bad he can be, Izuru isn’t going to let himself be overwhelmed. It doesn’t matter what kind of ‘training’ will be doled out to him, how difficult or humiliating it will be. As long as he can keep Gin away from Renji and from hurting anybody else to get to Izuru, Izuru will have won.

That’s all there really is to it.

“Why don’t I show you where you’ll be staying.”

-

The interior of the Cathedral strikes Izuru as exactly the kind of place that should be instantly condemned for health and safety code violations, yet persists out of sheer stubbornness. Immediately, Izuru hates everything about it from the rickety stairs to the crumbling stone.

Izuru’s least favorite location, in particular, is what amounts to a storage closet. The interior is dark and always smells uncomfortably wet. There is a bed and a lamp. This is where Izuru ‘is staying’.

During mealtimes, he eats in the kitchen with the priests and other members of the clergy, though he notices that many people take their food elsewhere to eat. No one seems very excited to spend time with each other. Izuru likes it, however. He never sees Gin enter or leave the kitchen.

Izuru is standing up from the long table and places his empty dishes in the sink. The meal is largely unmemorable — slightly burnt french toast. His plate and cup bob lazily in the industrial-size sink, rimmed with stainless steel for the kitchen duty to take care of later. He has to weave through swathes of equally occupied priests in order to make his way across the checkered tile floor, and he notices that many of the people who work inside the church are surprisingly young. Most of them are about his age. Some even younger.

Having cleared his place, Izuru turns towards the door and notices that the exit from the kitchen is blocked by a vaguely familiar figure. In the doorway stands a tall, blond woman with her hands on her hips and a nonplussed frown on her face. The fluorescent lights from the ceiling catch her shoulder-length blond hair like a fiery white tiara, and when Izuru approaches her he is more than a little afraid of getting punched in the face for even looking in the woman’s direction.

She jabs her thumb into the hallway. “You’re upstairs, kiddo.” The metal gauntlets of a legionnaire clatter around on her wrists, and Izuru duly heads for the staircase. The knight follows after him.

Her name is Rangiku. She is Gin’s bodyguard, though Gin seems to find more use out of her as hired muscle and an intimidating presence. Anybody who Rangiku catches out of term will almost wish Gin had found them instead.

Rangiku’s shoes sound heavy behind Izuru, heels striking the stone. She’s dressed intimidatingly nice, to the point where talking to her makes Izuru feel like she’s far more important than he is, and they both know it.

“So…” He asks, in a stellar lack of survival skills. “You’re a knight, yes? That must be exciting.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Rangiku’s eyes look right through him.

“Sure. And you’ve… been at the Cathedral a long time?”

The only reaction she gives him is a quirk of the eyebrow, staring down her nose at Izuru. “Oh, honey. All you need to know is I’ll definitely be around much longer than you’ll be if you keep being chatty.”

The rest of the walk is the most uncomfortable and painful silence of Izuru’s life, interrupted only by Rangiku saying once, “I hate guys who talk.” Izuru suddenly realizes that he’s sweating and hasn’t showered in two days.

Rangiku is the one who opens the door, opening it to enter Izuru into what he’s sure is the ugliest room he’s ever seen. Gin is seated on the side of an embroidered couch, looking over his shoulder to see the Izuru step onto a plush carpet the color of blooming algae. There’s a fireplace that doesn’t look like it’s had anything warm in it since the hot cement that was used to build it, which is just as well because Izuru doesn’t remember this tower having a chimney.

“Aw, just in time,” Gin chirps, gesturing for Izuru to enter and have a seat on the very stiff-looking chair with no arms across from the couch. “Ya’ have a nice dinner?”

Obediently, Izuru tries to put as little emotion into his face and words as possible as he sinks into the seat that immediately makes his tailbone sore. “Yes.”

“Good. I wouldn’ta known. I never eat that crap. But we can’t have our special lil’ student gettin’ a tummy ache, can we?” Gin waves a whimsical index finger in the direction of Izuru’s midsection, and Izuru has the thought of it plunging through his skin like a knife. “Now we can begin yer lesson proper.”

Rangiku saunters around the back of the couch to sit next to Gin, lying back against the soft cushion and twirling a strand of her hair. Izuru feels her icy blue eyes on him as Gin reaches out with his long fingers and gently touches the cold tips to Izuru’s temple.

After living in the Coven for a while, Izuru knows what it is like to basically be surrounded by noise. Picking out the sounds of Renji and Rukia squabbling with each other, or of Ikkaku and Nanao having a fight while Yumichika and Isane trying to defuse them. Of Momo trying to warn everybody that dinner will be ready soon and also if whoever keeps summoning spiders into the kitchen could please give it a rest, versus Kenpachi’s booming cackle as he is the only one close enough to hear Unohana make a snarky, no doubt severely cutting quip. Everything is a different volume and candor, but seems to thrive together. Like different parts of the same body.

What happens in Izuru’s head now is nothing like that. Or rather, it’s like that, only times a million, and happening in an echo chamber forever.

The moment Gin’s nails touch his skin, Izuru’s vision begins to swim like it always does when his powers are acting up. There are blurs of colors and shapes, things he recognizes becoming things that he doesn’t. He sees downstairs in the kitchen, one of the dishwashers cleaning up after dinner drops a plate on the floor and it shatters. Izuru can see each distinct shard go bouncing off the hard tiles, while the sound of breaking porcelain ripples through the air in a sonic boom. Outside the Cathedral, a beady-eyed rat scuttles out of the storm drain, and the passing feet of people crossing the road reflect in the infrared glare of its intelligent eyes.

Down the road, a young mother is trying to quiet a colicky baby for the fifth hour in a row. On the outskirts of town, an old man’s joints crack under the thinning wrapping paper of his tender skin. Each image comes and goes. The broad light of flashes to night then to day again until there ceases to be a sky. Izuru feels his brain is going to explode.

Then come the voices. Izuru first thinks that they’re white noise, coming from the background of the relay race of images trying to take the forefront of Izuru’s brain, but he begins to distinguish them as hushed whispers. It’s as if on the inside of Izuru’s skull he’s hosting a small movie theater, his visions being projected rapidly on the screen while an audience speaks to itself in the quiet dark, eventually filling up the whole wide room.

“Izuru.”

Gin’s voice is a watery million miles away. Izuru’s chest feels tight and airless; he can’t make himself stop seeing or hearing, no matter what he tries to concentrate on it moves too fast for him.

“Izuru!”

Finally, Izuru feels something pull him back. Like a fist closing around the back of his neck and dropping him back down into that room in the cathedral. Gin is leaning forward on his knees, finally showing a hint of concern. Even Rangiku seems perturbed, delicate brows narrowed on Izuru’s face so intensely he has to only assume he was acting weird in his stupor. Rubbing the colors still popping behind his eyes, Izuru realizes there are tear tracks going down his cheeks and dripping onto his shirt.

“You hurt?” Gin asks, in the same tone and cadence someone might ask a mechanic ‘is it broken?’

Izuru shakes his head, swallowing the lump in his throat and wiping away the tears from his eyes with his sleeve. “No, I was- It was just overwhelming. I’m fine.” Physically, at least, he feels fine.

Gin’s knuckle traces from his own cheek to chin, and he looks satisfied. “Good.” With an air of approval, he lifts his hands again and reaches for Izuru’s face. “Let’s give it another shot, hmm?”

-

It’s getting progressively harder for Izuru to distinguish the days. It isn’t just because the cathedral is so huge and dark, and Izuru sees far more of the inside nooks and crannies than he does of the outside courtyard and surrounding neighborhood. It’s because he’s tired. All the time. Endlessly so.

Gin has scheduled his ‘training sessions’ for once a day, every day. If Izuru were the sort of person to look for little blessings, he would say that at least his headaches have stopped. It turns out all he needed wasn’t medicines and teas and soothing balms, but to feel like is brain is being put in an industrial power washer full of confusing and frightening images and sounds.

It’s unavoidable. Izuru hates the sessions, hates the visions, and hates that even if he told Gin he wanted to stop, Gin wouldn’t give a single shit.

At night, Izuru has dreams about Renji. Not like his visions, where he peeks in and sees the past, the present, and the future all at once, but genuine, real dreams that his mind makes up all on their own. Usually, they are about Renji appearing and rescuing him, a heroic beacon to Izuru’s dismayed prisoner. About going back to their little room and having a late breakfast-slash-lunch. About kissing when it’s snowing outside.

They’re all very good distractions to try and keep Izuru from worrying. He knows Renji has to be out of his mind by now looking for him, and the other Witches must also be perturbed by the sudden disappearance of someone they considered family. Did they think something horrible had happened to him, or had it crossed anyone’s mind yet that Izuru may have fled of his own volition?

One of the reasons Izuru avoids the outside is because he’s afraid of seeing a Missing Person’s poster with his own face on it. Izuru can handle a lot, but he’s not sure if that is one of them.

On top of his training, Izuru also has a number of idle chores he does around the cathedral. The one time Izuru was bold enough to reference it, Gin launched on a long, excuse-ridden speech about how Izuru needed to “appreciate all the hard work that went into keeping this place going.” Which was delivered in a lot of bored tones that made it very clear Gin didn’t deserve a word he was saying.

“It wouldn’t be fair t’ everyone else here, explainin’ why they have to do all the tedious labor and you don’t. You have to learn the value of hard work, Lil’ Izuru!” Gin declared with a wave of his hand during tea with Rangiku, conveniently seeming to forget that Izuru had never seen Gin do so much as lift a finger to help anyone else. It clearly wasn’t up for debate.

Today, one of the younger priestesses shoved a bucket of brass polish and a stiff-bristled brush into Izuru’s hands. He didn’t understand the apologetic look she gave him until the stinging smell hit his nose and made his eyes water. All of the candleholders look pretty and shiny, but Izuru wonders if he’ll ever be able to breathe through his sinuses again.

It really is a shame, Izuru thinks, that such a beautiful building has such a vile person running it. Watching the way the aged and polished metal glows a holy gold against the candlelight, he can see why families come here to offer their appreciation towards their deities. This church could have actually been a safe place for people, were it not for the poison running through it.

Once he finished, Izuru begins the process of taking the cleaning supplies to the storage shed in the overgrown and unkempt courtyard. Lost in thought, lost in his own head as he always seems to be these days, he fails to hear another set of footprints stomping through the tall grass until a familiar voice makes Izuru drop his bucket and spill harsh chemicals into an already dying shrubbery.

“Izuru?”

Amazingly, the moment is actually a lot like Izuru imagined it would be in his fantasies.

Renji looks at Izuru with wide eyes, as if he believes he is seeing a phantom. He might very well be, Izuru knows he has to look like a disaster, is tempted to try and fix his hair and his borrowed, draping clothes. Renji, on the opposite side, looks as handsome and wild and beautiful as he did on the night Izuru left him. Even just wearing jeans, a hoodie, and a loud skull bandana, he looks like a fresh breath of the real world that Izuru hadn’t even realized he had been missing.

Looking at Renji makes Izuru forget how much he’s been hating himself recently, and that only builds the guilt in his stomach more.

Before Izuru can fully process what’s happening, Renji’s arms are squeezing him hard enough to knock the wind out of him. All Izuru can do is inhale a mouthful of cheap cotton-polyester blend while Renji crushes the life out of him. “Where the hell have you been? Holy fucking shit, we’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

There are several things Izuru wants to say, all ranging from ‘I missed you so much’ to ‘Leave. Please leave and don’t come back’. What he does end up saying, what he can’t use to hide his incredulity, is, “How did you find me?”

“Witchcraft, braniac. Remember?” Renji pulls back to give Izuru the kind of gleaming, shit-eating grin that makes Izuru’s heart melt into a puddle. He burns with fondness. “What happened to you, ‘Zuru? Why’re you out here in the middle of nowhere? Rukia was going off the walls!”

How does Izuru even begin to explain? Moreso to the point, how does he explain without getting Renji in even further danger than he already is just standing here right now?

Izuru’s thoughts turn back to Gin, which is about as pleasant an experience as it usually is. Izuru already put a target on Renji and the Coven’s backs by being associated to them, Gin knows they’re Izuru’s weakness. If Renji tries to intervene, if he knows Izuru is here because they were threatened and tries to go up against Gin on his own, then, well–

Izuru has a lot of faith in Renji. Maybe too much to let him risk himself in a foolish endeavor for Izuru’s sake.

“I–” The truth is on the tip of Izuru’s tongue. He bites it back down. “You remember those weird migraines. Turns out I had Prophetic powers. Weird, right?” He laughs very weakly and pathetically. Renji looks about as convinced as one would expect.

“So…” Renji’s brow is furrowed with concern. “That doesn’t mean you had to leave, right? You know we wouldn’t kick ya’ out for something like that. It’s actually kinda cool. Now you have powers like me!”

Renji’s sweetness is nauseating. Izuru feels the strong need to sit down and maybe shove his head underground. “I know you wouldn’t — Unohana and Rukia and the others wouldn’t. But I just–” What would make Renji want to stop helping? Probably nothing. “I want to be here, where they can help me learn to use my powers. It’s my destiny.”

The tide of the conversation takes a grinding halt. Renji’s smile starts to look strained on his lips. “Uh, ‘Zuru. I’m psyched that you have powers now and stuff, but that sounds… kinda dumb. Why’d you have to run away here and hide instead of just telling me?”

“Because I just… it’s hard to explain…” How do you explain to someone you love that your so-called ‘mentor’ is a possessive murderer? Oh wait, trick question.

Better question; how do you get someone to leave when they care about you so much they’d track you down several towns over just because they thought you were in trouble?

Izuru stifles his anxieties, and with a big inhale he tries to sound like he believes what he’s saying.

“Renji, I like you a lot.” So much. So much it hurts. “But if I’m going to master this thing then I don’t think I can see you anymore.”

The reaction is instantaneous, and Izuru watches a number of emotions climb over Renji’s face like lightning across storm clouds. Shock, disgust, anger, sadness, betrayal.

Abandonment.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

It’s like they’re strangers again. Like Izuru isn’t the person who’s grown up with Renji since they were little kids, who Renji took home when Izuru was lost in grief and built him back up. Who fell in love, passionately, madly, over the typhoon of adolescence and admired Renji like he hung the stars and moon in the sky with his own two hands.

Now he’s just nothing. Just a guy standing out in the weeds wearing a big pillowcase as a robe.

Renji looks lost. Eyes on the ground and hands in his pockets, he looks shockingly vulnerable for such a short exchange. For someone who Izuru has always thought of as brimming with confidence and an unflappable heart. Red slowly crawls up his neck to his face, Renji blinks hard like there’s something in his eye.

“Wow. So that’s just it, then.” The hollowness of Renji’s voice makes Izuru feel sour inside. Renji looks back up and fixes Izuru with a piercing gaze. “Then can I at least come see you again?”

Izuru’s mouth almost hangs open. Renji still won’t give up, even after being dumped like that.

“I don’t have to stop being your friend, right? Just tell me if I can come back and we can hang out again like we used to before.” There’s not a hint of insincerity in Renji’s face. Not an ounce of him that doesn’t want to hold on to Izuru however he can.

And Izuru should say no. Even if it hurts Renji, he should tell him to leave and never come back, for Renji’s own sake. That’s what a brave person would do.

Izuru nods. “Okay, but only in the courtyard.” It turns out Izuru isn’t brave. “We can meet again next week, just don’t let anyone see you.”

He’s selfish for wanting to keep Renji close. For taking advantage of Renji’s friendship, his kindness, his loyalty. He’s weak for watching Renji dissolve into a puddle of black shadow and waiting until even that disappears before sitting down on the filthy ground and curling himself into a tight ball.

He’s so, so terrible.

-

The air is cold and reeks of ink, with the sickeningly sweet scent of metal as an aftertaste. Izuru uses it to ground himself, keep one foot in the here and now while the other one is kicking its way through time and space.

“You’re hearing the voices, right? You need t’ concentrate on the voices of the Gods before ya’ can understand what they wanna and don’t wanna show you,” Gin reminds Izuru, dabbing at the the blood from Izuru’s long fingers with a filthy, red-stained rag. With the other hand, he dips a long, thin needle into dark blue ink. When he wields it, the head of the needle is as cerulean and pure as an arctic ocean. “Use more control.”

Izuru grits his teeth, trying to sift through the white noise in his brain as Gin goes back to work jabbing the needle into the thin skin on the tips of his fingers. The way Gin holds Izuru’s hand as he tattoos him is almost tender, if his skin didn’t feel eerily smooth and pallid like that of some undersea creature. The places where Gin pierces Izuru slowly turn a cool and unearthly blue.

“I might be able to concentrate a bit more,” Izuru says through carefully measured breaths. “But you pricking me like that is a little distracting.”

Gin sinks the needle back into Izuru. By now, Izuru’s pinky, ring finger, and half of his middle finger on his right hand are completely blue. Also by now, Izuru’s hand has basically gone numb from the stinging pain.

Against his will, Izuru wonders if Renji would be proud of him for being so brave through getting tattoos, since he himself was so proud of his ink. He then decides there probably isn’t a single thing here for Renji to be proud of at all.

“Pain helps concentration. Yer too young to understand that yet, but you will.” Gin wields the needle chipperly, like he’s doing some relaxing embroidery. Then he repeats, “Are you hearing the voices?”

Rangiku is standing by the doorway, presumably guarding. Whether she is there to stop anyone from entering or from leaving, Izuru can’t say. Every time Izuru looks at her, she is looking at him and Gin, then her eyes go straight ahead to the wall on the opposite side like she’s embarrassed that he caught her.

Izuru almost feels a little bad that his winces and cringes are making her uncomfortable. However, it’s not like he isn’t trying his damndest here.

“Yes.” Izuru nods, again trying to focus and block out Gin and his needles and the scent of Izuru’s blood. “I hear them, but they’re not really… saying anything to me. Just like I’m hearing snippets of a conversation.”

‘The red line’. ‘Black rain falling’. ‘A golden note.’ Izuru had no idea how frustrating Gods could truly be, if all they do is murmur to each other in some secret code. Occasionally one voice, a raspy one, says ‘Un-death’, and several more repeat it like a horribly unorganized chorus.

“That’s normal,” Gin says as he’s lining the flesh around Izuru’s nail bed with ink. “You’ll get it sooner or later. Hell, ya’ might even stay sane!”

What a gift that would be, in this line of work. Gin just barely finishes dying Izuru’s middle finger before his interest has fully waned, because he sets right to cleaning off the needle and leaving Izuru to wrap up his hand. “Sadly, that’s all for today. I’ve got a meeting with some important representative, an’ if I’m late again Aizen will start to get cranky with me. What an annoying man.”

Gin is still practically singing when he stands up, drifting towards the door with his hands folded innocently behind his back. “Rangiku, are you gonna join me this time? I always look better when there’s somethin’ prettier on my side.”

“Wish I could,” Rangiku answers, shrugging and sighing heavily like the world is on her shoulders. “Dumb Captain Shiba wants the Cohorts together. Apparently, it’s a little worrisome how tight some of us are with ‘your crowd’ and he wants to set the record straight.”

“Aww, sounds troublesome.” Gin pats her on the shoulder before he slides through the door. “Make sure he knows how much I appreciate yer service around here. It’s worth every penny. Many, many pennies.”

“Yeah, I’ll remind him.” Rangiku smirks as she watches Gin leave. Izuru sinks into his stiff, uncomfortable seat, feeling like he just watched the scene in a crime film where the mafia bosses talk about ‘sleeping with the fishes’. Now that he’s alone with Rangiku, he just wants to be as invisible as possible.

Izuru can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. This session drained him, he feels sore all over and can’t wait to drag himself back into his cot and fall into uneasy sleep. So in the hazy field of his awareness, he of course is surprised when Rangiku strides over to his chair. Looking down at Izuru, she somehow doesn’t look as stern as she usually does.

“Jeeze, Gin’s really putting you through the ringer.” She digs into her coat pocket and tosses something down into Izuru’s lap. Brief inspection reveals it to be a chocolate chip granola bar.

Izuru glances back up at her with obvious confusion on his face. She must pity him, to give him a gift after watching Gin’s training. She twirls a strand of blonde around her finger, which very much strikes Izuru as something that Renji would do when he was trying to disguise his feelings. “You’re just a kid, so you oughta eat a lot. Gin ate like a pig when he was going through his training.”

Without meaning to, the question tumbles out of Izuru’s mouth. “You knew Gin when he was a kid?” It comes out in much the same tone as one would ask ‘you go skydiving without a parachute for fun?’

“Sure. Ambitious types like him are always relying on much more beautiful, intelligent, strong people like me.” She grants Izuru a toothy grin as she turns on her heels and strides to the door. “Chin up, Kira. You’ll get the hang of it.”

Izuru chews on granola alone in a very dark room and wonders if she’s right.

-

If you were to ask Izuru what Gin’s actual job was at the Church, aside from just holding the position of Prophet, he would honestly have a hard time telling you.

He doesn’t balance the books or organize the money, though Gin sure enjoys spending it. Sometimes people come in and specifically request to talk to Gin, and he’ll usher them into a private little room and won’t come out for a long time. Izuru assumes that Gin is using his powers of prophecy for them. The alternative is that he is offering helpful advice or spiritual guidance, which unsettles Izuru a lot more.

Gin’s primary duty seems to just be offering his presence and making special appearances for holidays. Izuru can’t really discern how the crowds of people who file in for worship every week are able to admire him when Gin seems to relish being off-putting in every feasible way, but it turns out most of them aren’t really focused on him.

There’s something to learn here about that; about hiding in plain sight.

Usually after a public ceremony, it becomes unavoidable for Gin to attend a much more intimate meeting of the board of donors. Izuru is usually delegated to holding open the doors for people and then quietly scuttling off, trying not to get trampled by the parade of high-profile philanthropists who want to haggle with Gin about where their money is going.

Izuru knows that a member of Rukia’s step-family is in there somewhere. He hopes that they’re one of the old people who look like they’re nice.

Once everybody is accounted for, Izuru turns his back to the door and begins to tiptoe his way as quietly as possible towards the hallway. It isn’t like he has anywhere to be, aside from maybe trying to get a scant few more hours of sleep or entertaining himself by staring forlornly out a filthy window, but surely it’s better than waiting around here.

“I must admit, Gin. I’m less than impressed with your progress.”

A chill runs up Izuru’s spine. He’s never heard anybody speak that way to Gin before. That voice is so even and controlled, it sounds like the voice one would use when gently scolding a young student.

“Ne, ne,” Izuru hears Gin do his most dramatic, heavy sight. “You’re impatient, Aizen. Some kind of crisis going on that you need extra cash for? Surely the most qualified mayoral candidate knows how t’ balance a budget.”

Slowly, painstakingly slowly pressing his weight against the door, Izuru cracks it open just enough to peek inside at the board meeting. The interior looks very much like one’s stereotypical, high-end brunch, complete with mimosas. About ten people sit in a circular table around Gin, who’s back is facing Izuru.

Across the table, there’s a man that Izuru vaguely recognizes from the newspaper and Gin’s title of ‘mayoral candidate’. He appears to be a middle-aged man with brown hair, thick glasses, and rather plain face. He sits with his hands politely folded in front of his pressed gray suit, smiling a little vacantly like he is constantly bored.

“I’m only concerned for your own goals, Ichimaru,” Aizen explains cooly. “Your outreach programs and priests have a duty to serve the public and maintain order in the community. Maybe your donors should all consider if they feel like there’s more you can do for their neighborhoods.”

There’s some intensely quiet murmuring, a lot of people observing their sun-dried tomatoes and earl gray teas. A gray haired, mustached gentleman eventually proposes. “It sounds like you are asking for suggestions in ways we can make the town more respectable. I appreciate the intention, but I don’t care for my donation going towards the Church’s priests’ community gardening operation. Surely there are more important things we can support.”

“No, no. Please don’t misunderstand me, I also want to be as efficient as possible. The purpose of this board is to make a real difference.” Aizen holds his hand up in a pacifying gesture, though to Izuru it looks nearly robotic. Like an alien pretending to be human. “I just wonder if perhaps there is a way we can discourage unwanted behaviours in our local district. Maybe remove troublesome figures.”

“Oh, Aizen!” Gin tuts. “Trouble around your side of town with Warlocks again?”

“Warlocks. Witches. Sorcerers. All the same thing, they cause trouble in well-meaning neighborhoods and drag down property values wherever they’re hiding.” Aizen sips his drink and for the first time, Izuru sees a flicker of emotion pass over the man’s face. It’s disgust. “They also, of course, are far less expensive and far more competent with magic than your priests, Gin. You can hire a Witch to exorcise spirits or heal ailments for a fraction of your price, and expect far better results. I’ve done market testing. That could be concerning for your cathedral’s profits.”

“Rude,” Gin mumbles, but fails to sound offended. “So you wanna find a way to bump them out of the competition, eh?”

“Oh, not me.” Aizen chuckles. “Doesn’t that job fall on your shoulders?”

It churns Izuru’s stomach to hear someone talk to Gin that way. The silver-haired Prophet constantly oozes an aura of chaos, above the law and above society. The idea of an actual person being able to reel him in is… disturbing.

He has an idea that Gin is thinking the same way, because he grunts in a response that is borderline disrespectful. “Ugh. That’s a lotta responsibility t’ drop on me, friend.”

Izuru feels coldness drop into the pit of his stomach, and Gin’s neck slowly cranes until he is facing away from Aizen and the rest of the table. Finally, his smile lands right on where Izuru is peeking through the door. There’s no point in running, so Izuru just stands frozen.

“I should find somebody who knows a thing or two about those types of people.”

-

Gin’s fist is wrapped around the back of Izuru’s collar, tight enough for his knuckles to dig into the skin that is stretched over the ridge of Izuru’s spine. His feet stumble over each other as his body is being dragged towards the door to Gin’s room where they always perform Izuru’s training.

“Wait–” Izuru tries to dig his heels into the stone floor without purchase, find some way to stall for time. “Please, sir!”

His struggling is accented by the sound of heavy-heeled boots clacking down the fall. Both Izuru and Gin turn to see Rangiku approaching. “Gin, I got your–” Her eyes widen as she sees Gin yanking Izuru around like a ragdoll. “The hell are you doing?”

Gin’s smile sits crookedly on his lips. Izuru tries to wind his fingers between his shirt collar and his throat to create some room for airflow. For a man like Gin, who has all the build and grace of a scarecrow, there is a shocking amount of power in his grip.

“Hey, Rangiku!” Gin’s voice has a harsh edge to it again. The kind of voice that makes Izuru strongly suspect there will soon be death-threats or flipped tables. “Just in time. Be a doll an’ get the door for me?”

Obediently, Rangiku steps back and pushes the door open, staring in vexation as Gin all but tosses Izuru down into his usual chair. This time, however, Gin doesn’t take his usual, loping, painstakingly patient time, circling like vulture. Rather, he slams himself down across from Izuru and leans in with his spine curled forward. “So, Lil’ Izuru. What do you have for me?”

Izuru’s breath is roaring in his ears and he feels his heartbeat trying to pound out of his chest. Sinking in his chair, he is forced to look upwards at Gin, and he realizes how horrifyingly familiar with this feeling he has become. With being afraid, with being used. The only difference is that usually, Gin is happy to disregard Izuru as quickly as possible. This focus he has now is an entirely different kind of uncomfortable.

“I don’t know,” Izuru says automatically, because he has nothing else to say. Even if he did have Gin’s key to pushing the Witches aside, he of course wouldn’t just give that information away. He’s already betrayed the Coven once. “I don’t know anything.”

“You don’t lie to me,” Gin says. Not like a fact, but a promise. And for the first time, Izuru notices Gin’s eyes. Had they always been so blue? So frigid. Like the tattoos on Izuru’s hands and under his clothes.

Rangiku is still standing in the doorway. “Gin, come on–” But her words don’t even seem to phase Gin, it is as if he can’t hear her. Or he’ll just act like he won’t. His hand rises to Izuru’s neck and presses flat against the slight protrusion of his windpipe, gently delivering the smallest amount of pressure.

“There isn’t anything!” Izuru feels his panic rising. He knows — he is sure he has to keep talking, it’s the only thing that will keep Gin preoccupied. Or will at least keep him from losing his temper. “They’re good people. They don’t do anything wrong.”

Gin’s smile is finally slipping into a frown. Izuru had doubted there could be a sight more gruesome than Gin’s grin. “Tch. You’re so useless, Izuru.” And he closes his palms on either side of Izuru’s head.

‘Blinding’ is the first word that Izuru can process. Blinding pain. Blinding light. It feels like Izuru’s eyes are exploding inside his skull, bursting against the edges of his sockets until all his brain can process is blank, burning, pure white. He hears an overwhelming hissing noise, like static on the TV or air escaping a boiling kettle. Or like a snake.

Amidst the hissing, Izuru sees shapes and shadows begin to come out of the white backdrop. Blurry, fuzzy pictures. Izuru tries to control them, like he does with his own visions, but the reigns are out of his hands. Someone is definitely in control, but it isn’t him.

Flipping through the pages of his mind, Izuru sees his memories blur and blend together. There he is, leaving the Coven for the last time to come to Gin. And there, a few weeks earlier, helping Nanao bind books while Rukia is brewing tea. Ikkaku fixing the front door when it was broke and letting Izuru take credit for it. Yumichika teaching him how to do a silk suture, or helping Momo leaving out boxes with blankets for stray cats when it rains. Holding Renji’s hand for the first time as boyfriends.

Then there’s the first day he even came to the Coven. The first time Izuru met Unohana, literal years ago, in the place he would eventually think of as home where all his friends were.

The image slows down when it comes to Unohana. Over the hissing, Izuru can’t hear what she’s saying in his memory. But he knows what words her lips are forming because he remembers living through it.

As part of my bond to her, the Blood-Mother Ocean Goddess allows me to locate children who will eventually develop a proficiency for Witchcraft. We believe these children are specially chosen by our deities, as they are almost always in need of a home. We raise those children as family and teach them to be Witches.

A second voice, one that Izuru recognizes as a garbled Gin, speaks over the din. “Got it.” And Izuru feels himself being thrown out of his past and back into reality.

He needs a minute to breath. To feel the cold sweat breaking out on his skin and Izuru feels a crushing weight of sadness again. He had thought that just seeing Renji in person had been enough to make Izuru want to curl up and the floor and cry. But watching all his memories where he had been happy once was like swallowing knives.

Izuru tries to brace his hands on the arms of his chair to stand. His knees feel weak and he wants to throw up. He almost misses when the grin slips back onto Gin’s face as he hops to his feet. “Thanks, Lil’ Izuru. You always come through for me.” To Rangiku, Gin beams. “Would you mind lettin’ our dear Board Member Aizen know I wanna meet with him? Actually, y’know what? I’ll just surprise him myself. That should delight him.”

Rangiku clears the door for Gin with an unreadable expression. They leave with the door slamming shut behind him, and once again Izuru is alone, trying to control his brain enough to control his body. Eyes closed, Izuru tries to contain his urge to spill his stomach all over the floor while also wondering what on earth Gin has just made him admit with his hands sunken into Izuru’s brain up to the elbow.

Gin was inside Izuru’s memories. Inside his head. Izuru hugs his arms to his stomach. Of course, it was too easy for him to think he’d get to keep that to himself.

The door opens again, letting the light slide in over the floor. Izuru is afraid to look up and see that Gin is standing here, but he doesn’t hear any mocking or feel a hand over his neck. After a second of hesitation, he hears the heels of boots strike against the stone tile floor.

Desperately attempting to reign in his pitifulness, Izuru looks up at Rangiku’s face. Does she look sad, or is she just glaring at him in the dark? It’s hard to tell, with her brows furrowed and her lips sealed tight. Izuru doesn’t think he has ever noticed the shadows underneath her eyes before. They’re normally unnoticeable with her cheeks so rosy and skin so golden’ he hadn’t seen how tired she looks all the time.

“Oh, Izuru.” When had she started saying his name like that? “Let’s get you up. We don’t have all day.”

She puts a firm arm around his armpit and easily lifts him to his feet. The sudden motion leaves Izuru more than a little weak in his knees, but Rangiku has zero problem half-carrying him out the door and down the hall. She doesn’t make further eye-contact with Izuru, just keeps her eyes ahead until turning the corner.

With one of her hands supporting Izuru by the arm like a puppet and the other holding him up under his ribs, Izuru feels the press of Rangiku’s body against his back. She’s soft, and as warm as she appears to be, but she holds him like she’s unfamiliar with how to touch another human being. The way a child holds a doll.

Rangiku successfully directs Izuru to his room, helps him sit down on his cot. Izuru wishes he could feel relief to be back here, in his own quarters, but none of the weight inside him washes away.

Not daring to glance back up at her, Izuru asks, “Why did you help me?”

“Is that how you respond to kindness?” Rangiku says, and Izuru hears layers of sarcasm in her voice. Izuru wonders if she’s thinking of the fact that Izuru hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to show how he reacts to people being nice to him these days.

Finally, Izuru slumps onto the stiff mattress without bothering to take his shoes off. Being horizontal actually does help. “Just leave me alone.”

This is normally not the kind of thing Izuru would say to a person like Rangiku, of course, but at this moment he doesn’t care if she yells at him or beats him up or anything. He just feels a crushing sadness and anger and sick. He just feels all rotten inside.

When she doesn’t respond, Izuru assumes it’s because she has left the room. He doesn’t realize it’s because he himself is fading into unconsciousness, and the drop of a dreamless sleep.

Izuru wakes up an indeterminate amount of time later. Short enough to still feel nauseated, but long enough to feel significantly less so. That isn’t really the surprising part. What does rattle Izuru is the fact that Rangiku is still in his room, apparently seated herself on the empty crate Izuru usually keeps his clothes in and checking her phone. She must not be too preoccupied, because when she notices Izuru waking, her eyes roll over the disheveled whole of him.

“You look like a mess,” Rangiku sighs, arms folded over her chest. Izuru convinces his body to sit up, in spite of its complaints, and observes the water bottle and aspirin that are now on his nightstand. Nobody else but Rangiku could have brought them. Izuru pops the pills without a word and chugs the water.

The second he has a breath to spare, Izuru wipes away excess water with the back of his hand. “Did Gin tell you to watch me.”

“Gin hasn’t come back yet.” Rangiku shakes her head. “Just relax for a sec, okay? You still look like you’re about to keel over.”

Nothing especially new, there. Izuru’s frown deeps into a scowl and without meaning to, his voice hardens. “I’m touched that you care.” Surprised? Izuru is too. But he’s not exactly in the best mood, pissing Rangiku off is at the bottom of his list of problems right now.

Rangiku’s lips twitch, almost betraying an unreadable expression. “Ooh, big man. Suddenly sassy now that we can’t stand up without blacking out, aren’t we? How bold.”

“I asked you to leave me alone.”

“I heard you the first time.” Rangiku’s eyes drift towards the doorway. Izuru gets the idea, somehow, that she’s thinking about Gin. Cruel, mean-spirited, bad-tempered Gin, who only seems to show a breath of kindness to Rangiku. She must have noticed. Must always be aware of it, that she’s the exception.

“He wasn’t always like this, you know,” Rangiku says, her words quicker than usual. She speaks with this rising tone in her voice, like the more she opens her mouth the harder it is to stop. “He was a good kid. Always looked out for me. He was s’posed to be different–”

She clamps her mouth shut, eyes glaring a hole in the floor. Izuru watches, not feeling certain why or what Rangiku is trying to do here. He watches her stretch out like a big cat before standing on her feet and sauntering towards the door like their exchange never happened. “Feel better, Izuru.”

-

It doesn’t escape Izuru that Gin isn’t the only one who can use his powers for personal gain. These abilities are, first and foremost, a burden for Izuru. Keeping him away from Renji and the rest of Izuru’s adoptive family. Being another tool for Gin to use and hurt him with.

But even Izuru has to admit there’s a daunting amount of power there. It’s easy to see why people like Gin, who Rangiku claims was ‘not always like this’, become consumed and obsessed with that power and using it to control others.

In the wake of Gin violating Izuru’s memories, his thoughts turn to the Witches. What is going to happen to them, now that Izuru’s compliance does not guarantee their protection? Izuru tries to peek into the future, see what consequences Gin’s actions will have, but he comes up startlingly empty. Izuru hopes that is because the future is unclear even to him, and not because there is a lack of future to see at all.

Izuru makes a deal with himself that the only time he’ll use his powers of sight is to keep Renji and the others safe; otherwise he’s just abusing his abilities the same way Gin does. Izuru allows himself to peel away the distance between space and time just sparingly, like on the day that Renji is supposed to come visit him again. Even from deep within the belly of the castle, Izuru can see Renji skulking in the courtyard where they were supposed to meet.

The last time Renji was here, he was bold. Now he glances over his shoulder anxiously like he expects something to melt out of the shadows with the same ease that he himself operates through the Witch Way. And if the yanking on his long braid nervously and scowling wasn’t enough to tip Izuru off that something is very, very wrong, then the newspaper crumpled in his tense fist is a dead giveaway.

Feeling particularly devoid of bravery himself, Izuru considers just… staying inside. Hoping that Renji will take the hint and go away. But if being here proves anything, it’s that Renji isn’t one for giving up that easily. Izuru sucks in a big breath, brings himself out of his vision and into the real world, and tries to slip out into the courtyard as humbly as possible.

“What the hell is this?” Are the first words Renji throws at Izuru, along with the wrung-out newspaper. In spite of his mental preparations, the venom in Renji’s voice still manages to make Izuru’s blood run cold. “Witches are ‘crazed cultists’ who are ‘kidnapping children to brainwash them into their religious fanaticism’?”

Izuru unravels the newspaper even as dread threatens to make his eyes swim. There, plain as day in the bold print, is the headline ‘A REAL LIFE HORROR STORY: CHILD ABDUCTORS AND DARK MAGIC’.

“Oh my god.” Izuru’s eyes widen, and without thinking twice he looks up at Renji pleadingly like that could undo this. “Renji, I had no idea!”

“No idea, right?” Renji’s lips curl in a snarl, and maybe to someone who didn’t know him Renji was the perfect picture of intimidating in the way he loomed and scowled. But for some reason, Izuru absurdly reminded of the little kid missing his front tooth who sneered and pouted and radiated confidence. “Everything is in there, Izuru. Even Unohana’s name, except they’ve twisted it to make it sound like she’s some kind of monster obsessed with stealing little kids because she can’t have her own. Nobody knows that kind of stuff, Izuru! Nobody but us and you.”

It’s not fair. Izuru feels his throat twist up, hot and tight, as he stares at the ground. It makes his voice come out scratchy and warped when he opens his mouth again and all that comes out is, “I’m sorry.”

“Look at me.” Renji’s voice is stern. And when Izuru fails to drag his eyes up, a solid hand grips his shoulder and that shocks Izuru enough to make him look up, up into eyes that are lined with red and frustration. “I need you to look at me, Izuru, and tell me this wasn’t you.”

Of course, he can’t. Izuru did tell Gin everything. Even if he didn’t know what would happen, even if it was against his own will, what good does that do him now? He’s still responsible. Izuru looks back down at his feet and wishes he could relearn that little accident he caused the first time he came to this horrible place, so he could sink right through the ground.

“Unbelievable.” Renji’s hand recoils from Izuru, and it is the first time he’s heard such sincere disappointment in Renji’s voice. “Completely unbelievable.”

“I’m sorry,” Izuru says again to the weeds tangled at his feet, but Renji is already gone in a dollop of liquid shadow.

For a moment after that, there’s no sound except for the wind whistling through the tall grass, and it leaves too much room for Izuru’s thoughts. Is every interaction he has with Renji now going to be full of horrible unpleasantness and Izuru’s betrayals? How long before Renji stops coming back altogether?

Is it really better if he doesn’t?

Well, if he couldn’t count out the support of Renji and the other Witches before, it’s certainly gone now. And with that, Izuru comes to the realization that he is out of friends. There is nobody in this crusty building who would stand up for him. Nobody outside it who would trust him.

Izuru takes himself back inside, reaching through the fugue of unbelievable guilt and depression to remember to shut the door to the courtyard tightly behind him. Nobody has to know why the future Prophet was sneaking around in the gardens, after all. Everything is fine as long as nobody knows Renji was here.

With that, Izuru is very much alone again, in the one of many winding stone halls. The view of afternoon outside is fading to evening, which means the priests should be busy getting ready for dinner soon. And after dinner, Izuru can expect another ghoulish session of Gin’s training.

Rangiku will likely be there, which adds another spike of nervousness to the back of Izuru’s brain. During their last encounter, it nearly seemed like she wanted to actually converse with him. Get him to sympathize with her. While it might be nice having something a little warmer than cold, aloof indifference from the lady knight, it can’t be strictly wise to trust someone who is close to Gin.

There’s very little here to occupy Izuru aside from contemplating how all-around shitty he feels. Hiding out in the kitchen until supper sounds about as good as anything else. The kitchen is downstairs, connected to the first floor by a staircase betwixt the front room and the hall that filters to the rest of the cathedral’s living quarters and sitting rooms.

Nearing the staircase to the location Izuru wants, it becomes apparent that there’s commotion going on from the location he doesn’t. The ringing of several voices echo down the hall as Izuru walks forward, bouncing off the walls and coming from the direction of the front room like the rumbling of a huge stomach echoing up a gaping throat.

Izuru has two choices here. He can investigate the clamor, or he can go about his business and pretend to sink quietly into the void. Emotionally, he is really feeling that second option right now. Logically, he is obligated to the first.

The main room where the Church holds its regular ceremonies is about halfway full. Izuru has seen it packed to full capacity before, pushed to the brim with people standing in the back when there is a lack of seating, but it’s still a very unusual amount of warm bodies present in the middle of the week when no rituals or ceremonies are scheduled.

No one here looks particularly like the Church’s usual group, either. Izuru isn’t one to judge, but these people look critically underdressed for a quiet evening of spiritual observance. They don’t sit, either, but stand and mill around the empty pews like a field of scarecrows standing in the rows of fields, wrapped up in their coats. A few misshapen lumps press against the inside of people’s sweatshirts and activewear jackets as if they were bones pressing against skin, and Izuru realizes with a growing sense of dread that he’s seeing the wooden handle of a baseball bat sticking out of someone’s coat sleeve.

“What are you all doing here?” Izuru asks, willing his hackles to rise and his shoulders to stay square. He might not be in charge around these parts, but maybe at least the fact that he lives and works here should give him some sway to the casual outsider.

Eyes turn on him instantaneously and in a way Izuru does not find at all comfortable. The nearest person takes his hands out of his pockets and removes the hat that obscures most of his face. Izuru actually thinks he recognizes him from the weekly service, coming in with his wife on the weekends. “Are you in charge here?” His tone denotes some note of impatience, like this crowd has been gathering here for some time. Surely, this wasn’t all happening when Izuru was talking with Renji, right?

“Um…” Izuru’s voice dies in his mouth at the same time a cold, dry, familiar hand snatches his shoulder, fingers the same sharpness of teeth closing around his slender collarbone. Gin’s grin lights up his words with saccharine pleasure without Izuru even having to see it with his own eyes.. “That would be me, folks. Glad you could make it! Why don’t y’all head outside and I’ll meet you there?”

“‘Meet you there?’ Where are you going?” Izuru realizes that even though he’s heard of Gin leaving the cathedral, he hasn’t actually seen Gin outside its walls since the night they first met. It seems that wherever Gin goes, something bad is sure to coincidentally follow soon after. Misery does love company.

“What if… what if something happens here, wouldn’t it be better if you stayed?” Izuru hears the hollow hope in his voice as he trips over his words.

Gin laces his fingers together and holds them to his chest, as if flattered by Izuru’s request. “Aww, Lil’ Izuru, are you gonna miss me? That’s so cute! But I gotta head out. I told all these nice folks that if they had a problem with your little Witch friends, they oughta go over and have a face-t’-face conversation first. Ain’t it nice we can resolve our problems peacefully like adults?”

It always seemed obvious that Gin would go out of his way to control every aspect of Izuru’s life that he could. That he would sink is nails and fangs into every corner of Izuru’s existence and chew him from the inside out. Maybe it should have been more obvious that Gin could possess that same influence over other people.

There’s something gross and vile and slimy inside Izuru that almost feels worse, knowing he isn’t the only one to get manipulated by Gin. Like he wasn’t even the puppet, just the toy that filled time. The snack between meals.

Izuru swallows, and keeps his eyes very carefully away from anyone else’s face, or anything that might be a weapon. “Then… I should go with you.” To warn them. The Coven. The police. Anybody who would listen. “To help.”

“How sweet.” Between the dark lines of his lashes, Gin’s eyes flutter and Izuru sees a ghostly flash of white scleras through the narrow gap. If Gin had a face that was inclined to show much variation in expression at all, Izuru would believe Gin was sneering down his nose at him, as one might do to a very yappy and annoying dog. “But I want ya’ to stay here for when we get back. Just cuz’ I’m stepping out doesn’t mean ya’ get a free pass on your training tomorrow. So be a good boy and hop on up to your room!”

At Izuru’s back, he hears the footsteps of people filing eagerly towards the door. A cold sweat breaks out on Izuru’s brow and the back of his neck, and he feels clammy and sick all over. “But–”

“Izuru.”

And with that one word, his name, Gin’s voice begins to swirl and warp around Izuru like a thick, muggy jungle fog. Time and space is collapsing and expanding. “Go to your room.”

Izuru feels his body strain, going numb and turning into loose liquid. There’s a melding of light and shadow and color, at once his boneless body colliding with the ceiling at a hundred miles an hour. He’s forced up through the rafters and the paneling at the cement, and in one fell swoop Izuru’s head hits the far wall of the little cupboard he calls his bedroom with a hard ‘thwack’ to his skull.

Opening his eyes and waiting for the popping lights to recede from his vision only confirms what Izuru already fears. He’s looking at the ceiling of his room. Fighting dizziness, Izuru crawls to his feet and goes for the door, but the lock doesn’t budge. Izuru wretches at the handle with his whole arm, slamming his shoulder against the solid wood, but it doesn’t give even an inch underneath him.

Izuru is locked in.

Now would be a very ideal time for Izuru’s powers to miraculously bend reality for him again, the way that Gin’s did. Izuru tries to concentrate, placing his palms on the thick wooden door and will himself through the solid surface. Trying to visualize tumbling out the other side. Wishing. Wanting. Hoping so bad that it ties a knot in his gut.

Nothing. Not even so much as a metal jingle from the lock. Izuru doesn’t know if he’s trapped because of Gin’s powers, or his own inability to free himself, but neither of those options do anything to calm the pounding in his chest like a fist hitting him in the ribs over and over and over against. Izuru sinks to the floor, still pressing himself against the door. Wishing for something. Please. Please. Please…

In his vision, he sees the forest burning. It comes through hazy and foggy. Maybe because the smoke is burning his eyes through the vision, maybe because Izuru desperately does not want to see this happening. The smoke fills his lungs until he feels he is drowning and the sparks sting his skin like nails scraping into him. Izuru puts his head in his hands, palms pressed over his eyes as if he could squeeze the sight out of him, and he knows that his home is on fire.

He doesn’t understand how this could be his destiny. He doesn’t understand one bit.

-

Izuru must have passed out. Probably into the worst anxiety coma in the history of all time. Because when his eyes crack open and he becomes aware of both a striking pain in his back and a blurry voice saying his name, while Izuru’s cheek is pressed into the floorboard. His face is sticky with dried tears and snot, a fact that he tries to cover by wiping his skin with his sleeve and watching it come away all disgusting and awful.

“…-ru… Izuru!”

The voice belongs to Rangiku. Izuru untwists his body from its pretzel position on the floor to see her standing in the doorway, looking alarmed with her brows furrowed and pink lips tucked into a serious frown. The light from outside halos the outline of her body. It must be either daytime, or close to it. “Izuru, your door was locked. Is everything o– Shit, what happened?”

“It’s too late.”

The words tumble out of Izuru’s mouth before he even processing them, but he knows they’re true. He’s too late to stop Gin. Too late to warn the Witches. Too late and too weak to help anybody, even himself.

A pair of warm, strong arms wrap around Izuru’s body. Rangiku lifts him up to his wobbling feet like picking up a stumbling, drunk toddler. “Izuru. Hey, stay with me, buddy. Let me get you something to drink. You look like you might actually need a doctor–”

“I’m…” Izuru trips over the rest of that sentence. He’s not fine. Nothing is fine. “I’ll be okay. Need some fresh air.”

Really, what he wants is to be alone. But not alone in that horrible trap of a room. Rangiku looks dubious, but she helps him down the staircase gingerly, surprisingly gentle. Under her breath, Rangiku’s voice is sour and full of venom. “I can’t believe Gin would do this.” Not that Izuru had mentioned anything about Gin. It doesn’t need to be said whose fault this is.

Outside the cathedral, Izuru finally forces Rangiku to relent. He drops his weight down all at once out of Rangiku’s grasp and feels his butt collide hard with the stone steps. It’s earlier than he thought it was. Dawn is peaking out over the rooftops of the city like liquid gold, and as Izuru sucks in a big breath of fresh air to clear his head, he realizes he can’t remember the last time he was actually outside for more than a few minutes. This street feels so huge and exposed compared to the narrow hallways and shadow-strewn corners.  

“Hey.” Rangiku’s hand is on Izuru’s shoulders. He realizes that they’re rougher that he expected, with dark bruises on the knuckles, which isn’t what he anticipated from a woman like Rangiku. When he looks up at her, she is crouching down on her toes like a perched cat to be eye-level with him. “Do you feel sick? Are you gonna vom or something?”

Of course he feels sick. He’s more or less homeless now. Well, technically homeless, technically a prisoner in his current home. He’s lost his home, the home of his friends, and the sanctuary of a group of people who really needed it all in one fell swoop. His and Renji’s apartment, the library, even Unohana’s house with all the old crayon drawings of her children have to be long buried under ash by now.

Izuru blows his nose into his sleeve. He hates that perfect golden sunlight is beginning to pour into the sky. The world should be gray and miserable for what has been done to it. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

Rangiku’s brows go up a bit, which she covers by pushing a lock of dark, golden hair past her ear. Her eyes fall off of his face and she sighs a bit. “Don’t worry about that, okay? Focus on yourself first.”

“Sorry,” Izuru says, almost reflexively. He doesn’t want to trust Rangiku, but it’s becoming difficult. She’s been the only reliable person around him lately. Even when it means standing up to Gin.

“It’s fine.”

She stands back up to her full height. Soldier-like, her eyes seem to scan the streets for danger, and her hand squeezes Izuru’s shoulder once more. “I’m going to get somebody from inside, get them to call you a doctor, okay? Sit tight and don’t move.”

Izuru rubs his dry eyes in their sockets with the pads of his thumbs. “Yeah. Okay.” And he hears Rangiku’s boots click up the stairs and the creaking moan of the door being opened and shut behind her. And just like that, Izuru is alone again.

He takes a deep breath. Willing the pace of his heart to even out, Izuru counts up to ten. Then he counts all the way back down to zero. Rangiku still hasn’t come back out.

Still light-headed, Izuru forces himself to stand up on wobbly knees. With the first step, the ground seems like liquid underneath his heels, but as he gains speed it becomes much easier to move, propelling himself in one direction. Izuru graduates from a leisurely walking pace to a jog, and then to a full run. Soon he is sprinting away from the cathedral, hurling his body across the ground until his lungs are strained and breathless.

This is a bad decision, for more than one reason, but it’s a decision Izuru has to make. He has to find Renji. He has to know that he and the others are safe. That they made it out okay.

First conundrum; Izuru isn’t exactly sure where he’s heading. He has no money for a train ticket, or any other kind of transportation. Running several towns over seems like more trouble than it’s worth, and if Gin isn’t on his way back by now he’ll surely be on Izuru’s tail soon. Maybe he can convince someone at the station that he’s lost. Izuru certainly must look miserable enough to squeeze through at least one good sob story.

Izuru’s pace slows down, nursing a stitch in his side. This is stupid. With Izuru’s luck, Gin will step right off the train platform and onto Izuru’s toes, and that’s even assuming Izuru would make it that far. There has to be something else.

That’s when Izuru breathes in, and he inhales the sour scent of sulfur and brimstone.

“Renji?”

Izuru asks automatically and hating the hope in his voice. At once he is standing and alert, his head whipping around in a desperate search for a flash of red hair, a thunderbolt of black tattoos, a streak of black lightning.

He doesn’t even notice the hands reaching for him until there are fingers practically around his throat.

Two fists seize Izuru’s clothes, drawing them tight around the collar with knuckles pressed against Izuru’s windpipe. Powerful arms easily lift Izuru clean off the ground, Izuru very much shocked and flailing in the air as he looks down arms and straight into Renji’s eyes. They contain an expression that Izuru has seen Renji wear before, but never directed at him. Renji’s eyes are hot, and narrowed into dark little pinpricks of hatred.

“Hey, ‘Zuru.” Renji’s voice is a dark, guttural growl. Izuru could swear that smoke is rolling out past his teeth and over his lips, but that could just as easily be the streaks of burnt gray still clinging to Renjis singed clothes and hair like a permeating fog that encompases him. Up close and personal, Izuru can see soot smeared on Renji’s cheeks and nose, the edges where Renji’s vibrant hair has been burned to almost pitch black.

Izuru swallows hard around Renji’s firm grip. Well, that answers one question. Renji is definitely alive and able-bodied. “I’m sorry–”

“Yeah, so I’ve heard.” Renji drops Izuru back to the ground, and he lands hard on his feet as the earth wobbles underneath him. He knows he must look like a mess, with his red-rimmed eyes and his layers of sweat, but frankly Renji doesn’t look much better. Underneath the coating of ash and dirt, Renji’s eyes are dark from a dangerous, sleepless night of fear. He reeks of terror, smoke and burnt hair.

Sucking a lungful of air back into his body, Izuru feels himself retreat under Renji’s harsh glare. “Renji, the Coven– is everyone–” He can’t find his words. The bravery that drove him to run and try to find Renji has vanished. It’s suddenly dissipated.

“Glad to know you suddenly care.” Renji’s lip curls, showing off the edge of his teeth. “They came looking for Unohana. Kenpachi wouldn’t give her up, so they fucking torched the place and chased them both off. You wouldn’t have known anything about that before, would you? It only seems that when something shitty is going down, you’re right in the middle of it.”

Renji’s words come fast and hard, Izuru feels like each one is a blow to his head knocking him wildly off balance. Unohana was the leadership for all the Witches, and Kenpachi was their protection. Of course Gin would locate the two most powerful Witches and want to drive them off.

“Renji, I didn’t mean for this to happen…” Izuru tastes ash in his mouth. He thought he would be used to this by now, playing the role of the villain so that Renji and his friends wouldn’t get hurt, but all that’s done so far is put them even more in harm’s way. “But you can rebuild, right? Everything can go back to normal.”

“Oh, ‘normal’? Yeah, no problem! We’ll just rebuild an entire town overnight after getting flambeed. Great i-fucking-dea! Don’t you even care?” Renji’s eyes squeeze shut, trying to hold back but the rest of his body clenches tightly like a fist. Something flickers from underneath Renji’s sleeves, and Izuru sees the tendrils of his tattoos ooze out and drip onto the pavement. The crawl over the ground and up the walls of buildings like long sunset shadows, surrounding them like the black iron bars of a cage. “Don’t you even care what they did to your friends?”

“Of course I care,” Izuru says, but he’s hollow inside. He knows inside himself that he’s hurting for them. That he wants to help. He’s been toiling and suffering Gin’s control for months now just to protect them. But, of course, his actions couldn’t possibly reflect that. He didn’t let Renji understand that before, and now he never will.

Izuru knows with daunting certainty that even if he told Renji the truth, there’s a good chance Renji wouldn’t believe him. If it were Izuru in Renji’s shoes, would Izuru even believe it?

Renji reaches out and tugs again at Izuru’s collar, drawing the latter close towards him. Looking directly into Renji’s enraged face, there’s a split second where Izuru thinks Renji might actually hit him and he instinctively flinches away.

Of course, Renji sees this, and some undecipherable expression climbs over his face for a brief instant before transforming back into one of anger and repulsion. The black limbs of Renji’s tattoos crawl up his forearm and across his veins, reaching out and clinging to Izuru’s clothes. They no longer feel like a comforting presence as they probe up the length of Izuru’s neck.

“I hope you really love your fucking church and being its special little prophet,” Renji hisses, and as he does so the black ink etched into his eyebrows spreads down to the corner of his sclera. Black spreads over Renji’s eyes, turning them from white and brown to a perfect pitch like polished obsidian. “I hope you’re really proud of what you did here, cuz’ you’re gonna burn like you burned us.”

And this time, Izuru is absolutely positive that is smoke coming out of Renji’s mouth. As if he had come right out the fire that took his home and he swallowed the flames up himself. His voice sounds warped and unreal when he speaks, and Izuru knows what this is because he read about it in the Witches’ library. This is a Witch’s curse. “At your highest moment, when you taste your victory and think you’re safe, this is all gonna come back for you. What you did here today — it’s gonna poison you from the inside out.”

Izuru feels cold, like his veins have slowed and turned into ice. With one good shove, Renji pushes him away, and rather than stumble and try to keep his balance Izuru just lets himself fall and hit the dirt. He shuts his eyes hard and braces for impact as he collides with the sidewalk, and by the time he opens them again, there’s nothing where Renji used to be except fresh air and sunshine.

There’s a positively frantic Rangiku waiting for Izuru when he returns to the cathedral.

Gin is also back.

-

The next week goes by in a blur. Hours turn into days and day turns into night with an anxious urgency, and Izuru isn’t sure he can process his surroundings at all. It feels as though he’s trying to hold water in his hands, but his thoughts and feelings keep slipping through his fingers. Instead he feels empty and disorganized and awful. Renji’s words keep ringing in his ears, always circling around his head in a halo.

Maybe that works to his advantage, however. Izuru being unresponsive apparently makes him less interesting for Gin’s usual regular torment. Not that Gin doesn’t have other playthings to occupy himself with now.

The cathedral seems emptier now. Izuru watches from his usual chair while Gin makes phone calls and writes letters to arrange for priests to be sent all over the county area. Apparently there’s a sudden great need for talented, organized magic-users.

“Every cloud’s got a silver lining, don’t it, Lil’ Izuru,” Gin chirps as if he’s clever. It takes new reserves of Izuru’s already exhausted willpower to not just tell him to go fuck himself.

If there is, in fact, any kind of actual upside to be gleaned from the situation, it has to come in the unexpected form of Rangiku. Since Izuru last saw the two of them together, it seems that a rift has opened up between Gin and his supposedly devoted knight bodyguard. While it used to be the case that Izuru would see her attached to Gin’s hip, they’re almost never in the same room. It practically seems like Rangiku is purposefully avoiding him.

When she appears, she does so without warning, and usually wielding some kind of snack. Izuru can no longer afford to be surprised when Rangiku pops out from around the corner, with a complicated Cheshire cat smile and launching a plastic-wrapped granola bar at him.

“Hey, Izuru,” she drawls as the granola bar bounces off of his chest and he scrambles to catch it. “You always look scrawny when I see you.”

He has no argument for that. Not least of which because his appetite has been very much lacking these days. Izuru stuffs Rangiku’s health food into his pocket obediently, anyways.

Izuru wants to ask her about Gin. He wants to know if she really is trying to keep her distance, and most of all he wants to know if it’s because of him. Instead, he plays it safe and says conversationally, “You’re very chipper today.”

“Mm, not really.” Rangiku shrugs and purses her lips. Now that he thinks about it, Izuru wonders if that might be another side effect of spending time apart from Gin. Or perhaps she’s just trying to cover up some different kinds of feelings. “What about you? How are you holding up?”

Izuru plays with the foil on his granola bar. Maybe just a nibble wouldn’t hurt. “Do you mean, like, right now?” ‘Holding up’ is kind of a loaded phrase for him.

Rangiku rubs the back of her neck, threading her fingers underneath the waves of her hair while her other hand is stuffed in her pocket. “Ha! Well. The thing is, you know Gin’s been sending out a lot more priests? So, the world going around is that he’s hiring more people to come to the Cathedral to fill the gaps. Targeting traditionally religious families and offering to teach their kids how to use holy magic.”

Nibbling on the corner of the granola, Izuru raises his eyebrows and patiently waits for Rangiku to elaborate. Rangiku’s body seems to close up, going from pleasant to reluctant. “So the rumor I’ve been hearing through that ol’ grapevine is that one of them is– used to be a Witch.”

“… What?” Granola falls from Izuru’s lips, tragically forgotten. He has a bad feeling about that phrase ‘traditionally religious’.

“Yeah, I kinda figured you should know. In case…” Elbows pinned to her sides uncomfortably, Rangiku makes a vague expression with her hands. ‘In case it should be somebody you recognize’ hangs unspoken in the air between them.

Sure enough, it’s not too long at all until Izuru hears the harsh noise of a car beeping in front of the cathedral. In some places, that would hardly call for attention, but the cobblestone streets in this city are so uneven and old, anything outside of foot traffic is noticeably rare.

From a third story window, Izuru dares to look down at the entrance to the church, where a shiny, long black car is parked in the road. From his perch, Izuru watches a tall man with dark hair and a crisp suit step out from the back, then circle around to the other side of the vehicle and open up the door for a young woman to step out.

Izuru already feels a fresh strike of regret as he watches the sunlight reflect off of her glossy black hair, grown out to almost reach her shoulder. The woman turns her face to frown towards the huge cathedral with a backpack hanging off of her shoulder, and Izuru watches Gin come out from the entrance and usher Rukia inside.

-

There’s now an additional obstacle that Izuru has to avoid. She is about four-foot-nine, and has a narrow glare in supply for Izuru at any given moment he is unlucky enough to catch her eye.

The worst parts, however, are the sparing moments that Izuru walks in to find Gin talking to Rukia. Izuru is so used to seeing her dressed in bundled up in black flannel and knit dresses, wearing beat up sneakers and a hoodie she stole from Renji as a tunic. The sight of her wearing one of the flowy white robes given to priestesses makes her look washed out and ghostly.

“Ah, Lil’ Izuru. There ya’ are.” Gin says, looking up from Rukia. Whatever he was talking to her about, it’s left Rukia with something of an obviously haunted expression, her eyes wide and alarmed. Her lips are sealed tightly as she looks between Gin and Izuru with unhampered suspicion. “What is it? I’m busy with the newest, prettiest member of our little family here.”

Izuru’s throat feels parched. He resists looking directly at Rukia, and some part of him is accidentally unburied. Some part that definitely remembers growing up happy and warm and trusting Rukia with his whole mind and body, the girl who jumped off of swingsets. His very dear and precious friend.

“It’s time for my training,” Izuru answers. “I thought you might have forgotten.”

“So impatient! Fine, then.” Gin sighs, clearly burdened by the inconvenience that is Izuru Kira. He does glide away from looming over Rukia, who sucks in a breath of obvious relief.

“We’ll finish this later, Sweet Rukia.”

Izuru turns to follow after Gin, who of course doesn’t wait for him to keep up, when Rukia’s hand catches Izuru’s sleeve. The power in her tiny grip is nothing compared to her forceful expression when she holds him back, and through her teeth Rukia whispers, “Why are you helping me?”

And for the first time in a long time, Izuru feels a swell of relief. She knows he’s trying to help. She knows he isn’t just Gin’s blind little accomplice. They can protect each other.

“I can’t explain right now,” Izuru admits, winding his thin fingers through Rukia’s to pry her off of his sleeve. “Just be careful. Be safe.”

And even as he has to leave Rukia still reaching for him behind him, even as he has to follow Gin to another dreadful evening, Izuru is happy to know he can at least tell someone the truth.

-

Gin, at least, was useful for one thing after all. Izuru’s control over his visions have increased exponentially. No more headaches. No more accidentally releasing his powers and manipulating the physical structure of the universe.

Not everything has changed, though. For one thing, he still gets the occasional vision out of nowhere. Izuru supposes that is just a part of being a conduit for supernatural forces. The deities of this world trying to tell him something important in the only way they know how.

He’s so used to his visions being confusing, clustered and terrifying. But eventually, Izuru realizes that what he sees and hears aren’t just random. They’re trying to show him things as more than they are.

For example, when Izuru looks at Rangiku, he sees her as she is. A knight, a mercenary who is tied to Gin through the shackles of her own honor and loyalty. The way she answers probing question with a narrow glint in her eyes and the way she stands brimming with power. But if Izuru looks at her just the right way, like a photographer waiting for the right angle, the right light, he sees her as she was.

A vulnerable child, with tangles in her wild copper hair and big, kittenish eyes and dirty, empty hands that never stopped grabbing. A young girl who stomped down on her compassion and her kindness to become the cut-throat soldier she needed to be to survive. A decorated hero who now, even as she stands steeped in power and at the side of her oldest, closest friend, is doubting herself more than ever.

And sometimes when she frowns, with her brows knit, Izuru can feel the surface layers peel away and he glimpses into her thoughts. A great big question mark sitting behind her eyes, asking ‘Am I doing the right thing?’

Izuru realizes, with growing intensity, that he likes Rangiku. And not just because of her snacks.

He also sees himself. Izuru knows who he is, not least of which is Gin’s punching bag. But he also sees who he could be. In passing glimpses. In the the corner of his eye, when Izuru catches sight of his reflection in the aged, smeared windows of the cathedral he sees himself in the future. In a year. Five years. Ten years, living here, under Gin’s reign. Growing older, grayer as Gin and his regime drain the life out of Izuru. Out of Rangiku and Rukia. Out of everyone who might stand against him. Gin sits and absorbs the joy out of people like a leech bleeding them to dryness.

And deep in the shell of Izuru’s ear, he hears a sound echo. A voice, high and raspy, like the sound of cave water dripping down stalactites and striking the smooth ground. Like a knife scraping over ice.

_“What would you do to change this future?”_

It asks. It beckons. And in a way that is just as deeply unsettling as it is instinctual, Izuru somehow recognizes this voice. It’s the God of Penitence. The patron of lost souls. Of luck, both good and bad. Of doorways.

 _“What price would you pay,”_  the voice asks, and it rings deep into Izuru’s bones. It swells through every cell of him. _“To rewrite this future?”_

Izuru doesn’t need to know the price before he knows his answer.

-

The cathedral has a cellar in its building, eternally damp and cool. Even in the summer, the staff stores anything down here that has a risk of spoiling, letting it sit in the constant chill that permeates where the sun can’t touch it. It’s mostly storage, and empty space, and an unquiet dripping noise from old pipes winding across the ceiling, naked and bare. It has just the distinct kind of musty basement smell that reminds Izuru of the one in his grandmother’s house. The thought of going down the rickety wooden staircase at night used to give him fierce nightmares.

In its own way, it’s kind of adorably ironic. Instead of being afraid of the monster in the basement, Izuru is playing the role of one. His knees and ankles are beginning to feel sore from his position of a crouch on the floor, where the coldness seeps into his hands and toes. Hardly able to see two feet in front of him, Izuru is reduced to a series of blind sensations. The soft scraping of his hands and knees crawling across the stone floor. The stench of mildew in his nose and wafting down his lungs. The tenseness of waiting in his gut. The weight of the knife in his hand.

This moment is a grenade with the pin pulled out. A picture frame teetering off the table edge.

Light cuts across the floor in ripples from the cellar door sliding open. The faint illumination from the hall pours down the steep staircase and reveals itself to Izuru in his hiding place as a corner of glowing yellow.

“Where was it, Rangiku? This creature that you saw.” Gin’s voice is silvery and distant. Truly, he is far more pleasant from far away than up close. Izuru hears a wheezing sighs, a lilting tone. “Goodness gracious. Why have a big, strong knight around if she gets frightened off by a little scurrying in the basement.”

“Aww, that’s not fair, Gin! Aren’t you the one who told me there’s a passage in this cellar that connects to the Church’s catacombs. If you’re really so brave, maybe you oughta check there first.”

Izuru has nothing but faith in Rangiku’s acting ability. She sounds just as playful as she did before around Gin, taking the smoothest route to distract him from her ploy. Izuru is heavy with envy for her self-control.

Gin laughs, which is a dry and wheezing and airless sound. “Oh, trust me, Ran’. You don’t wanna go down there, with me or no!”

There’s an uncomfortable lack of noise. Izuru holds his breath in his core just to try and hear Gin’s footsteps, but even the wooden boards of the stairs seem to be muted under his descent. Its as if Gin doesn’t walk, but slithers down the staircase on a weightless belly. The only that that shifts at all is the volume of Gin’s voice. The way it grows less quiet. The way Izuru can begin to hear Gin humming tunelessly under his breath.

“Hmm, hmm! What could it be that Rangiku found? Is it a rat?”

There’s a much more distinctive sound that Rangiku makes when she climbs down the staircase after him. She’s wearing her boots, again. The ones that clack loudly with every step that she takes. “I told you, it’s not a rat.”

“No, I think it is.”

And just like that, Gin’s voice is alarmingly close. Izuru feels a knot clench up in his stomach, like his body is trying to retreat inside himself. He wishes, in that instant, that he was anywhere but here. He wishes he never met Gin or heard his name or knew of his existence. Izuru might even wish he was never born.

That feeling doesn’t go away in the next instant, but it does take a secondary position in Izuru’s thoughts. The primary position, the one controlling his body right here and now, focuses on squeezing his palm around the handle of the kitchen knife in his hand. His fist is so tight that it hurts, knuckles popping out white against his tattooed blue skin.

“I think there’s definitely a rat around here…”

Gin’s voice. Gin’s breath. Gin’s presence. In this dark enclosure, in this cold room, everything about him is haunting. Izuru could honestly believe that he was alone. That Rangiku and the rest of the world above him had vanished into nothingness.

“…a filthy, cowardly, nasty lil’ rat…”

And just like that, Izuru’s heart leaps into his throat as he is face to face with Gin Ichimaru once again. He could see the blue of his eyes reflected in the whiteness of Gin’s feral grin. He could see the beads of sweat rolling down his own forehead. “Hey there, Lil’ Izuru. What’re ya’ up to?’

Izuru’s entire world goes blurry, or maybe that is because he’s trembling so hard he can’t see straight. His body goes from very, very cold to very, very hot in one flash, and Izuru feels the coil in himself spring as he launches. Clumsy, frog-like, Izuru unfurls his body with the knife’s blade outwards, aiming blindly to sink the metal glint into Gin’s core.

It never reaches its mark. As Izuru’s arm arcs through the air, Gin’s hand raises. Pale fingers unwrap from Gin’s palm and time slows down to a sticky, lumbering crawl. Gravity twists sideways, the balance of reality momentarily knocked onto its back and Izuru’s knife is yanked out of his hands. With a metallic clatter, the kitchen knife vanishes into the depths of the cellar.

“Oh, dear,” Gin chirps, and licks the outside of his teeth as he pushes himself nearly nose to nose with Izuru. “I think you dropped somethin’.”

There’s a sudden, booming sound of metal on metal, like a crack of thunder rolling across the sky. In one brave stride, Rangiku is behind Gin and Izuru’s eye catches the flash of something huge, metal, and steel in her hand.

Izuru has never seem Rangiku with a sword before. Like a shield and big, hulking armor, it’s a part of the uniform he associates with people of her craft. But of course, spending a significant portion of his days indoors, Izuru has never had the privilege or the mortal terror of seeing Rangiku suited for combat and on the battlefield.

When she wields the sword, it looks exactly like he imagined it would in his fairy tales as a child. A terrifying, glinting fang, large enough and sturdy enough that even raising it over her head seems to demand a tremendous amount of physical effort from Rangiku. It looks like a perfect weapon, bleeding a silver glare from its flawless steel body.

As she brings the blade smashing down, Gin raises his arm as if to defend himself and again reality ripples around him. Rangiku’s face is pinned in a strained snarl with the weight of holding her blade aloft, but despite her struggles the weapon’s razor tip trembles towards the ground as gravity yanks it downwards.

“Ya’ really thought you were gonna catch me by surprise, huh? Like I didn’t notice the two of you becoming all buddy-buddy behind my back.” There’s that voice Gin uses when he’s angry. When he’s truly angry, and it’s putting a stress in his throat that makes him sound like he’s hissing.

Finally, Rangiku’s sword falls out of her hands. It hits the stone floor with a thick, solid ‘thud’, and just like that Rangiku is up against Gin completely unarmed. “I gotta tell you, Rangiku. Somethin’ like this I expect from Izuru. But I’m actually disappointed in y-”

The rest of Gin’s sentence falls apart into a garbled mush under the force of Rangiku’s solid punch to his face. Rangiku’s entire body swings with her arm, landing on her front foot like a baseball pitcher as Gin goes reeling backwards and onto his ass.

Izuru has an opening, and immediately he’s searching for the knife, crawling on his hands and knees and not caring if his fingers find the blade before the find the handle. He tries, also, to not be distracted, because Rangiku’s face is like lightening as she lands a rib-shattering kick into Gin’s ribs. Gin’s entire body wheezes as Rangiku’s lips peel back over long teeth in a snarl, and Izuru has to wonder how long she’s been anticipating this. Perhaps before she even knew she was.

Being battered and beaten, however, does little to assuage Gin’s rage. And once the moment of shock ceases, an enormous pulse of power knocks Rangiku off of her feet and tosses her a handful of feet away, sprawled on the dirty floor. Gin is on his knees, arm cradling his chest where Rangiku kicked him but still huffing with determination. Trying to pull himself to stand.

“A’right,” Gin sputters as he wobbly tries to bring himself to his feet. “Now ‘m just mad…”

Rangiku is still curled up on the floor, pushing herself to her knees, but Izuru has the gut-clenching realization that she might be too dazed to recover fast enough. In an ordinary fight with an ordinary foe, Rangiku would have already won this battle, but Gin has no intention of fighting fair.

Izuru needs to act. He needs to focus, but none of his powers are coming to him. Supposedly, this is one he has to do on his own, which would be fine if he had his fucking knife.

There’s no knife here, but there is something. Izuru’s eyes fall on Rangiku’s sword lying on the ground, then at the figure of Gin uncurling himself bonelessly.

The sword is astoundingly, monstrously heavy in Izuru’s hands. So heavy his muscles scream and strain and the length of the weapon is unruly and hard to direct.

Izuru cannot imagine a less convenient way to fight someone until the blade sinks into Gin’s robes. The narrow edge of the blade slides through skin and muscle and bone like Gin is made of water, finding a home for itself buried in the body of the Prophet.

The only noise that Izuru can hear over the pounding of blood in his ears is Rangiku. The word “Gin” a breathless echo on her lips before Ichimaru Gin falls dead to the ground and blood begins to filter between the cracks in the stone tiles.

Izuru stands above, feeling very unsure of his reality or anything in it, looking at the corpse until Rangiku comes to retrieve him. “Izuru…” She hugs him tightly, reassuringly, and Izuru wishes he could return the favor to her after killing her ex-best friend.

Instead, he shoves her away as the contents of his stomach turn to sour acid. It feels like there is a hole burning inside his belly, Izuru doubles over and less than a foot away from Gin’s dead body Izuru empties the contents of his stomach onto the floor. He vomits and vomits until he feels empty and woozy and clammy, and then he wretches more.

There’s something caught in his throat, and Izuru coughs around the shape and the bile and the sour taste until Rangiku thumps him on the back and Izuru ejects the object into his hand. Slippery with bodily fluid, his skin registers the texture of metal.

It’s a ring. Exactly like the one belonging to Gin as the official Prophet of the Church. Running his thumb over the surface, Izuru traces the edging of a snake unfurling a pair of wings.

Renjis voice pounds in Izuru’s head like his heart pounds in his ribs. “At your highest moment, when you taste your victory and think you’re safe, this is all gonna come back for you. What you did here today — it’s gonna poison you from the inside out.”

Izuru feels dizzy and bloodless.

-

It’s an unreal, bizarre feeling. Izuru wakes up in his same, cramped room, and for a second everything feels normal. Then he remembers that Gin is dead.

Izuru shuffles down to the front room, and knows that today there won’t be any early morning worshippers. Instead, Rangiku is surrounded shoulder-to-shoulder by her compatriots, the knights of the Cohorts, leading them in the investigation. There’s lots of yellow tape around the front doors, and Izuru has to squeeze through a crowd of anxious priests to get through the hall. An ocean of white-robed clergy bob as one united, anxious waves ebbing back and forth to get closer to the knights conversation.

“Is it true… there was an accident last night?”

“I heard he fell down the stairs.”

Izuru has to work to school his expression. They’re technically not wrong. Izuru watched Rangiku pick up Gin’s corpse and drag it up the staircase, all of his limbs banging and breaking on the ascent like a mangled doll, before she rolled him back down the stairs. By the time the body landed back down at Izuru’s feet, it was nearly too misshapen and twisted to even identify as human.

Rangiku’s face was stony, her lips in a grim line. “No one will notice the wound.” She promised. Izuru had to be dubious that no matter how beat up and bruised the corpse was, anyone would be able to overlook the huge stab wound cleaved right through Gin’s torso.

Now, with a scant five sleepless hours between the two events, Rangiku cackles with peels of laughter at something a brunette co-worker says. She hardly looks to be the same woman who came at Gin like a wild animal, her long hair pulled back into a sporty ponytail and a thin coating of lipstick on the edge of her paper coffee cup.

As Izuru gingerly approaches, it becomes apparent that the only thing that betrays Rangiku is the line of red around her scleras, looking crimson and brutal, but even that works in Rangiku’s favor. As she rubs at her face with the heel of her hand, an orange-haired boy asks, “Are you gonna be okay, Matsumoto?”

Rangiku chokes a sour laugh. “Yeah, I am. It’s just– it’s so weird that he’s gone, you know? It doesn’t feel real.” She gives her crew this watery, huge, toothy grin that couldn’t possibly look more fake.

Izuru would figure that Rangiku is a very, very talented actress, but not all of those little quirks seem entirely disingenuous.

One of the knights finally notices Izuru, turning around and giving him a disarmed look. Of course, Izuru reliably looks just shaken up to be of no harm. “And who is this here?” He asks with the voice of someone greeting an adorable pet.

“This is Kira.” Rangiku introduces him, as her word is obviously much more important to these people than Izuru’s own is. “He was Gin’s student.”

“Yeah? Sorry about your teacher.” A firm hand descends on Izuru’s shoulder, and Izuru has just enough power in his exhausted body to not collapse onto the floor like a bowl of jelly. “But it looks like the Church is gonna need a new Prophet. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll do a great job!”

“Oh? Oh-–oh my gods.” Izuru says breathlessly, and with a dawning realization creeping up his entire body. The knights begin to draw away, taking Rangiku with them. And just like that, Izuru is left standing in the middle of the room, looking towards the hallway and seeing the many eyes of the priests glowing in the shadows of the corridor.

Izuru realizes that they’re waiting for a signal, and when one continues to not appear, they begin to file away back down to the back of the building and attend to their duties as usual.

In the crowd disappearing, Izuru spots it. A flash of black hair, a glimmer of intelligent, raven eyes. Rukia’s piercing gaze regards Izuru with a greater sense of knowing. It feels as if she is looking directly into his soul, before the connection breaks and she turns to leave him.

Caught in a stupor, Izurus brain refuses to work with his body. Once he regains the ability to think and act again, he automatically makes to move after her. “Rukia, wait–” But his path is intercepted by a lanky priestess appearing in front of him and delivering an unprompted but deep bow.

“Prophet Izuru,” she says, and the name makes a fresh new layer of sweat break out under Izuru’s clothing. “Prophet Ichimaru had a meeting with the Board of Donors today. I know this is still a shock to all of us, but it’s imperative that you attend!”

Izuru licks his lips. There are few things he would like less than to sit in Gin’s place and look across the table at Gin’s collection of unfortunate acquaintances. It doesn’t feel right to be far away from the protection of Rangiku right now, or the clarity of Rukia.

But on the other hand, he’s not being given much of a choice. With Gin gone, everyone will be relying on Izuru to fill his shoes, as disturbing a fact that does seem. Izuru opens his mouth to answer, letting it hang a moment wordlessly, before the words from the God of Penitence echo in his ears.

What if Izuru was given this opportunity for a reason? Well, obviously he was — he did it to save the Witches and his own skin. But what if he could do more?

Gin may have been a monster, but Izuru was the one who sat by and watched him be atrocious. Powerless, helpless, Useless. Now he has an opportunity to undo all the shitty things that Gin did in his shitty life. Izuru could turn things around. He could actually use this power to help people for once.

He tells himself this, repeating it over and over again, when he opens the door to the boardroom brunch. Izuru immediately notices that Aizen’s chair is empty. The only part of his own body that Izuru feels is where the weight of his ring sits against his knuckle.

-

“So what do you want to do now?”

They’re alone now, Izuru and Rangiku, at the end of the day in the room Gin used to hold Izuru’s ‘training sessions’. They’ve been in this room together a lot of times, but now Gin’s absence seems to be a yawning void, a black hole sucking in their attention.

It figures that Gin’s presence would still be weighing on them, even his lack-there-of.

Izuru was the one who asked the question, so he is also the one who continues it. “Do you want to leave? Your co-workers seem to like you. They’d probably appreciate having you around more, doing real knight duties instead of being here.”

“Yeah, sure.” Rangiku replies without any kind of serious emotion or consideration behind her voice. Her fingers fumble with a box of matches, finally striking one enough to produce a tiny flame before tossing it on the dark fireplace. For the first time ever in his memory, Izuru sees the fireplace burst into orange, cheerful flames. “What about you? Being the Prophet is kind of a big deal. You won’t be able to get away with just skirting under the radar anymore.”

The unspoken addition of ‘if you choose to stay’ hangs silently between them. Izuru watches the fireplace cast a golden glow on the rest of the room, and it almost seems cozy in this place if he tries to forget who he inherited it from. Izuru laughs dryly. It’s not as if he has any other place to go.

“You’re right. I have to be responsible.”

Rangiku crouches next to the fire, warming herself like a cat in the welcoming heat. It doesn’t escape Izuru to add the fact that he basically dragged her into this onto his already massive pile of guilt. “How d’you mean? You’re not Gin, Izuru. You don’t have to clean up after him.”

Izuru isn’t so sure. He pulls his knees up to his chest and tries to find the words that don’t make it sound like he’s making excuses. “Part of the reason that Gin… was the way he was… could do so many of the things he did… Was because he was the Prophet.” Of course it is. Izuru remembers, the way Gin could see and hear things he never should have been able to observe. The way he rooted around in Izuru’s own mind and scraped out his memories. “Maybe… the best thing that I can do now, is make sure that doesn’t happen again. I can stop the Church from doing terrible things. Make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

And like a weed poking up through the layers of his thoughts, a determined little picture breaks into Izuru’s mind. Renji, forgiving Izuru for everything. The two of them together again and happy, like they were before. Izuru being Renji’s hero instead of another one of Gin’s victims.

Perched on the balls of her feet, Rangiku sways back and forth precariously. She’s thinking.

Rangiku was also the one who wanted to turn her life around, Izuru recalls. She was Gin’s tool, the same as Izuru was. Perhaps this is the opportunity that she needs as well to undo her past.

The grin that she gives Izuru is both wide and narrow at the same time, through heavy-lidded eyes that ooze a sense of smugness. “You basically already know you’re going to need me, don’t you? I mean, you may be a Prophet with all these buck-wild powers an’ all, but you’re still just a scrawny kid.”

Rangiku pulls herself up to her feet, still as tall and powerful and beautiful as when Izuru first met her. But now there’s a spring in her step and a charming smile stretched across her lips. “You stay here and start coming up with a plan. I’m gonna order us some lunch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter to be posted Saturday.


	3. Chapter 3

Izuru breaks his promise. 

It doesn’t matter how much he tells himself he’s not hurting anybody, it’s automatically an invasion of privacy. He made a vow that he wouldn’t use his abilities of sight to spy on Renji unless Izuru thought he was in danger.

But Izuru is pretty sure Renji won’t talk to him anymore. So that’s done. Izuru has to admit that breaking his promise to himself is on the lesser side of his internal conflicts right now.

In his vision, the suburban little wooded area where the Coven once found its home was exactly what Izuru expected it would be — that is to say, a pile of cinders. What once were buildings are now a collection of burnt kindling, barely standing up against the naked wind. The surrounding trees, of course, caught a good deal of the damage, and the resulting patch of grayness on the gentle incline of the soft forest earth creates the illusion that this entire spot was hit with a burning meteor or some kind of nuclear explosion, leaving no life in its wake.

Izuru takes a leap of logic, and figures he isn’t going to find answers there. Perhaps if he focuses on a person and not on a place.

He refocuses, honing in on his memories of the Witches, and suddenly the scene before him changes dramatically. The ashen valley dissipates and what swirls into vision is a mangled, smog-choked street in some distant corner of a town Izuru doesn’t recognize. Izuru hears the high pitched shrieking of gulls and the sound of water lapping against stone that clues him into the fact that this must be some kind of dock or harbor. No sooner does this thought occur to him than the hand of an enormous, dilapidated clocktower clicks into place and the entire street rumbles with the force of the clock chiming five times.

The clock tower chimes like it’s wailing pathetically, which matches the rest of its crooked, shambling appearance. With each toll of its bell, Izuru’s vision moves closer, and closer, until he’s looking directly into the belly of the tower itself.

On the interior, it looks like someone has brought in a lot of things with a great deal of urgency. The first person he sees is Isane, with her elbow propped up on a fold-away table, running her hands through her short, choppy hair. With it pushed away from her face, Izuru can see the dark shadows around her eyes.

On the other side of the table, Nanao is standing and armed with a pen while she frantically scribbles on a mess of spreadsheets spread between them. Her glasses sit askew on her narrow nose, and her hair hangs loose and disheveled around her shoulders for the first time Izuru has ever seen.

“I think we can make this work,” Nanao says, but her voice is tense and rough. Like grit and gravel and the sea. The end of the pen finds its way to her forehead, jabbing into her temples with frustration. “Rukia leaving us was… not great, but we’ll be fine. Momo and I might just have to split some extra shifts at the apothecary.”

Isane exhales a heavy sigh, and it sounds like this isn’t the first time today Nanao has fretted in recent memory. “Nanao, you two are practically in there all day with me. You can’t overwork yourself.”

“I know. I know!” Nanao pushes her glasses back up her nose, setting down the pen and shuffling through stacks of paper like she’s waiting for them to reveal a new answer to her. “I’m just… trying to think ahead. And I don’t mind the extra work. Honestly, I don’t like being in this stupid clock for longer than I have to.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t be stuck here.” A third voice argues. Ikkaku is nearly sinking into the mass of a misshapen couch that has certainly seen the inside of a garbage truck at some point, but he kicks himself up so that he can gesture between the girls towards the open window. His tone is deep and raspy, and his hands decorated in scratches and callouses. “It’s been months since we heard anything from Kenpachi and Unohana. Maybe instead of waiting around here, it’s time for us to look for them somewhere out there!”

“Don’t be stupid, we wouldn’t even know where to start searching!” Nanao snaps sternly. “If you’re so determined, you could be in charge of that that, you know. Come up with a plan or something. You’re the oldest of us, and you trained directly under Kenpachi. Maybe you should be the new leader.”

A flicker of something very genuine and very vulnerable passes over Ikkaku’s face, before he schools it back into a solid scowl. Under the way that he sets his jaw and runs his palm over his smooth scalp, Izuru knows nothing could be as daunting to Ikkaku as the idea of taking over in Kenpachi’s place.

“What about Isane? She was Unohana’s apprentice for ages.”

“Uh.” Isane pales as two sets of eyes fix themselves on her. “Unohana was a worshipper of the Blood Mother Ocean Goddess… she’s an extremely powerful deity, and communicating with her can take a lifetime of training. I don’t know, actually, if I can even do that…”

“And the Blood Mother was the one who made it possible for Unohana to find new Witchlings.” Nanao sighs, running her hands through her tangled hair. “So we couldn’t add any new Witches to the Coven, anyways.”

That sits in the air between the three of them for a while. Before, there was an understanding of continuation. Izuru knew that each one of these people grew up, were raised by Witches older and more wise than themselves, with the understanding that they would get to pass along that knowledge to the next of their community.

Now there may not be a community to speak of anymore. Young children, discovering their powers, who would have found a home with members of their own kind may never get the option that all of them had. And they may get older and lonelier without the family they once assumed they would always have.

In a display of tremendous unsubtly, one of the unmarked crates pushed towards the door tips over in a splash of dust. A stripe of black ink streaks between the crevices and the cracks, and immediately Isane huffs, “Again?”

“I got ‘im,” Ikkaku growls, standing on top of the couch cushions while balancing on the tips of his toes. In one, stupendous, frog-like leap, he launches himself across the room and catches a fistfull of pure black tendril between his knuckles, which dissipates into a fine mist almost as soon as it’s caught.

“Renji!” Ikkaku barks in the direction of the door. With great reluctance, the door creaks open to reveal the shy face of Momo, with a sullen Renji standing behind her. “I told you two to stop eavesdropping! Where’s Yumi? He was s’posed to be keeping an eye on you!”

“We’re not eavesdropping! We’re a part of this, too,” Momo protests, before Yumichika all but crashes into Renji. It’s purely because of the weight difference that Yumichika bounces off of Renji’s chest.

“Sorry, I know. My bad!” Yumichika says, hands out in a display of regret to appease ikkaku. “You must admit that she has a point, though. No one here is a little kid anymore, Ikkaku. Everyone deserves to know what’s going on.”

Of course Izuru’s vision narrows in on Renji when he snorts in disgust. Of course he notices Renji looking even more disheveled and scowly and surly than usual, his hands burrowed in the pocket of his hoodie and a dark frown marring his face. Izuru also notices that his ponytail is shorter with the seared ends of it snipped off, currently in the process of growing back. “What even is there to hide? We all know who’s fault it is.”

“Renji,” Momo slips her arms around Renji’s bicep, sisterly and gentle. “It’s going to be okay. Rukia will be fine. We’ve just gotta keep our focus. Look towards the future.”

Not even Renji’s bad attitude can stand up to the sheer force of Momo’s positivity, and under her wide eyes Renji’s own gaze falls to the floor. “Yeah, cuz’ the future is looking really cool right now and all.”

And then, an additional, new voice adds on. “C’mon, Renji. Everyone’s upset about Rukia, but it’s not like she’s gone forever.”

Wait, an additional voice? Everyone Izuru recognizes is already here.

Even the rest of the Witches, aside from Renji, seem to be perturbed. Ikkaku mutters a hushed, “Fuck, how does he always sneak up like that,” as a tall, dark, unfamiliar man seems to appear out of nowhere, practically rising out of Renji’s shadow.

Immediately, Izuru’s focus is drawn to the man’s face. Three brutal scars vertically tearing up one side of him, while the bottom half of his face is covered by what Izuru believes is one of Renji’s bandannas. Even in spite of those things, Izuru has to admit that the parts of him that are visible are actually quite handsome. He has dark, intelligent eyes.

He also, Izuru notices, has a sweatshirt that is very baggy on his lean frame and actually looks recognizable. He knows this because it’s Renji’s sweatshirt. This strange man is wearing Renji’s clothes.

Who is this asshole?

Renji is the only one who fails to be unsettled by the newcomer, raising his eyebrows and somewhat relaxing his broody disposition. “Shuuhei, you made tea?” Suddenly everyone seems to realize that the man is brandishing a tray loaded with teacups.

Shuuhei just sighs. “You said we were going to be here for a while. I got comfortable. I didn’t know us humble inhumans were allowed in the Secret Witch Meeting.”

He hands a steaming mug to Renji, and for less than a second Renji’s hand covers Shuuhei’s and Izuru feels… something. Like electricity, or warmth, passing between them in that brief collision.

Before he can hear anything else, the vision breaks apart and splinters away back into the real world, and Izuru has to rise out of his astonishment. He had assumed that maybe, just maybe, he could prove himself as a hero to Renji and win him back, simple as that. He had not accounted for the possibility that once he had pushed Renji away, he might trip into the company of a handsome, mysterious stranger.

A stranger with no prior connections to Izuru. A stranger who has, in a brief amount of time, earned Renji’s friendship.

Izuru gnaws on his finger, dragging his teeth across the surface layer and over where ink has changed his skin from pale peach to cold blue.

He has a new key for earning back Renji’s trust, and one way or another Shuuhei is going to help.

-

Izuru watches the years pass by like flipping through the pages in a book, lurking around the corner with his fingers in the distant currents of time and space to pull them all together. And from a distance, he watches and learns.

He sees Renji and Shuuhei living in their big, drafty house. He watches them eventually leave even that behind, using Renji’s magic to create a more mobile home. Sees Renji turn from craftsman to mercenary, skimming just under and out of danger. Shuuhei, to his credit, seems like a more than capable partner, with his inhuman strength and his inhuman teeth. Which Izuru decided to be grateful for after the third time Shuuhei yanks Renji out of a streamline of fire by the collar.

Izuru sees the bizarre bond between them. Renji and his Familiar. Shuuhei and his Witch. Sharing meals together and going on adventures together. He sees, as well, Shuuhei proving himself to be very brave and loyal and cunning. With his disheveled dark hair, and his big, dumb leather jacket, and the steely determination in his actions.

He sees the way Renji looks at Shuuhei, with a face warm with fondness, hidden behind a hand over his smile and an attitude full of snark. Shuuhei wrestles the unruly appliances in the kitchen as he cooks in the tiny nook of their wagon, dutifully schooling his toothy scowl into a face of determination. He appears to have no idea that Renji is attentively watching from over the top of a magic textbook, pretending to be hard at work.

-

The day after Izuru, Rangiku, and Shuuhei escapes from the catacombs, Izuru sleeps for almost a solid twelve hours. It would have been longer, if not for a certain someone and her well of determination.

“Izuru, get up.” How he even manages to hear Rangiku’s voice is a miracle. The way that he has his face stuffed against the couch cushions should effectively deaden all of his senses.

When his eyes crack open, Izuru sees her. Still looking disheveled and covered in a layer of grime and sweat. Her lips are neutral, but the furrow in Rangiku’s brow reveals that there’s more on her mind. She’s still upset, after what happened. Izuru can relate.

She is also wielding a platter, and when she angles it onto the side table next to the couch Izuru can see it’s loaded with crackers, cheese and fruit — all of the foods that Rangiku knows are easier for Izuru to eat when he has no appetite.

Izuru forces himself to sit up. Everything all over him is sore, but that’s hardly his greatest concern right now. The tips of his fingers are still numb and tingle from where he made contact with Renji’s attack, and serve as unpleasant reminders. “How do you feel?”

“That’s my line.” Rangiku gives him a brave, wry smile, leaning her hip against the arm of the couch. She looks tired. Brave, but tired. “You look like crap. How’m I supposed to stop worrying about you when this is how you take care of yourself?”

“I do take care of myself.” Izuru eyes the plate of snacks cautiously, wondering if it’s worth it to point out that he has no desire to eat in order to satiate Rangiku’s fretfulness. He decides that it isn’t, and reluctantly nibbles on a cheese cube. He feels… mm, what’s the word for it? Bad. “I don’t feel… great. That trip took more out of me than I thought it would.”

Rangiku hums with disapproval, folding her arms in front of her chest. “Hmm. And I suppose that our little team reunion didn’t lift your spirits? Shocking.”

Izuru feels his chest get heavy again, and his gaze drifts down to the floor between his shoes. In the years since they had last been face-to-face, Renji became even more handsome that he looked in Izuru’s visions. Even when his expression was twisted with rage and fear. “You shouldn’t be mad at Renji. It isn’t his fault.”

“Now you sound like Shuuhei.” Rangiku shakes her head. “Anyways, that’s not why I woke you up. I’d let you sleep more and regain your energy, but Rukia wanted to talk to you. You know Rukia, right? She seems like a nice girl.”

“Oh.” Izuru almost inhales his cheese. Stomping down on a fresh, new spike of anxiety, he cautiously presses. “Is she waiting right now?”

“Yep. And if you try to avoid her by hiding in here, I’ll bet she’ll just come inside on her own anyways,” Rangiku warns him sternly, marching to the door with her fists swinging at her side. She still walks with a slight limp from a rough landing on their misadventure, but Rangiku has had closer scrapes. Izuru wishes she’d be a little more careful. “Can I let her know that you’ll talk to her?”

“Mmhmm.” Izuru supposes it is inevitable after all. Even after Gin’s death, he’s had so little contact with Rukia. There never seemed like a good time or place to explain everything to her, and she scares him. She scares him because he’s afraid she’ll treat him like a stranger.

Izuru then figures he’ll wait at least three minutes after Rangiku shuts the door behind her to try and sneak out and avoid the encounter completely.

He almost succeeds, trying to drift down the halls as silently as possible and doing a pretty damn good job of it. Izuru’s gotten very familiar with every inch of this church, right down to its ancient and battered bones.

However, if it’s a match between Izuru’s ability to escape uncomfortable situations versus Rukia’s well of willpower, Izuru is almost certainly doomed from the get-go. Rukia appears around the corner like she’s springing a carefully constructed trap. “Kira, I’m glad I caught you. Do you have a minute for me?”

“Yes, of course,” Izuru says between his heart palpitations. What choice does he have to comply?

Rukia cut her hair short again, he notices. The last time he caught of glimpse of her, it was well past her shoulders and now it’s been chopped off to her ears. From the uneven angle of it, Izuru strongly suspects that kitchen scissors and the lavatory mirrors were involved. Rukia looks ethereal, dressed in white and accented in blue. She still makes him nervous.

Technically, Izuru is her boss. Technically, he doesn’t really get to decide what she does or doesn’t do anyways. Priests of the Church have an obligation to service their congregation, the Devotees of the Church. Rukia is a very talented magic-user, but Izuru knows her abilities don’t come from the same beings that his do. She’s still a Witch, through and through, denied her Witchcraft.

Which is why, perhaps, Izuru isn’t surprised when Rukia brushes her bangs out of her face and says plainly, “I’m resigning from my position. Immediately, actually. I wanted to ask if it was okay with you if I left the Church this evening, since I’ve finished all of my work in advance.”

This, too, Izuru supposes, is inevitable. Rukia’s about as happy here as he is. “Of course you can. But what about… does your brother-in-law approve of this?”

“No, I haven’t told him yet. Or any of the rest of my family,” Rukia admits, shaking her head. She gives him a small, wry smile. “I expect when they find out, there’ll be a big shake-up. Wanting to chase me down and tell me all the reasons that I’m bringing shame to my sister and the whole Kuchiki name and everything. Lots of drama.”

Izuru can only imagine. The Kuchikis are so proud, he’s sure some of them will be relieved to finally cut Rukia out. She’ll be left with no money or support. “Oh. I’m very sorry…”

Rukia shakes her head. “Don’t be. I knew it was going to be this way, I just needed to wait until the time was right. Besides, I won’t be here to deal with it, so the consequences don’t really matter.” It sure sounds nice, to not have consequences where everything is a fucking issue.

“Well, you should still be careful.” Izuru shifts uncomfortably, looking downwards. “It won’t be like the Coven is very far away–”

“I don’t just mean that I’m going back to the other Witches, Izuru. There’s something else. You aren’t the only one who gets signs from your Gods.”

Izuru’s immediate impulse is to leave that comment where it is. He doesn’t want to pry or keep Rukia here for any longer than she desires. But of course — if Rukia is getting a sign from her deities, than who else is?

Before he can ask what kind of sign, however, Rukia interrupts him by sticking out an arm awkwardly, fingers outstretched and a determined look on her face. “Thank you, Izuru.”

Izuru shakes her hand with his own, spidery fingers wrapped around her tiny ones. It’s remarkably awkward. “For what?”

“I dunno,” Rukia admits, shrugging and glancing at the floor. “For trying to protect me from Ichimaru? For not making me change myself? Either way, I know that… things aren’t as simple as they seem.”

She takes her hand back, and Izuru tries to listen to her instead of thinking about how much he misses her already. “You should patch things up with Renji soon. You’re running out of time.”

“What do you mean?” He wants to press, but Rukia shakes her head.

“No questions yet, buddy. You’re just going to have to trust me.” She turns on her heels and begins to march away, already beginning to look more like her old self than Izuru had seen her within these walls. Over her shoulder Rukia says, “Bye, Izuru. I hope I see you soon.”

The harsh light of a sunny, early morning blares through every window and sliver of curtains. As Rukia disappears into the labyrinthian halls of the building for the last time, Izuru’s eye catches a glance of the stained glass window looking down on the streets in front of the building. The massive damage from Renji and Izuru’s fight drags a dark spiderweb crack diagonally down the middle of the glass. Izuru could probably fix it by himself with his powers, but something stops him.

He tells himself it’s because he has other things to worry about right now.

-

In Izuru’s vision, reality shimmers like reflections of light on molecules of water until the haze becomes an image, and the image is the inside of a home that isn’t his.

The mobile wagon that Renji and Shuuhei share is, somehow, everything and nothing that Izuru would expect it to be. Anywhere that Renji lives, an obvious trail of disorder seems to follow him closely. And Shuuhei seems to appreciate all of Renji’s property as his own, by proxy, so there’s a severe lack of orderliness running rampant.

At the same time, Izuru has to appreciate the natural beauty, the comfortableness. He sees the aging sofa that Rangiku lived on for a week or so, a worn afghan with a knit sea monster pattern thrown over it. Jars of preserved something-or-others are stacked into a pyramid near a growing pile of crumpled papers that Renji must have been working on. Strategically, there’s a lot of greenery positioned around the windows, pots overflowing with viney plants and old shoes that have been re-purposed as habitats for pale little saplings. It’s messy, and warm, and thriving.

The only thing that doesn’t seem to immediately match the vibrant nature of the scene are the two people who are living in it.

Izuru sees a familiar, somewhat lumpy shape sinking deep into the recesses of the sofa cushions. And from the dirt-covered leather jacket being used as a blanket and the doc martins dropped at the foot of the couch, Izuru can only assume that shape is Shuuhei.

He rolls over, and in his exhausted stupor Shuuhei doesn’t seem to even notice his teeth catching on fabric and ripping a fresh, new tear in the arm of the sofa. Not that Izuru can blame him, of course, after the day Shuuhei has just had. Above the severe jagged disaster of his mouth, the inhuman’s eyes flutter sleepily, drooping until he rubs them with the heel of his hand and pushes back dark, messy hair from his face. He’s oddly beautiful, and Izuru decides that there’s something kind of cute about the way his entire jaw seems to come unhinged when he yawns.

It soon becomes apparent what woke Shuuhei up — he must have sensed Renji’s presence, because there’s the clumsy tapping of some decidedly un-stealthy sneakers trying to gently tiptoe their way around the room. Renji smells like the rain from outside, wrapped up in a ratty flannel, and he gives the sofa a very cautious look as he shuffles in the direction of the kitchen.

Shuuhei’s eyes snap open at once, awake and alert as he hears Renji sneaking around behind him. His body tenses with his spine curling like a cat, and for a long, uncomfortably silent moment it looks like he really is going to pretend to be asleep instead of talking to Renji. Finally, an expression of anxiety married to impatience crosses over Shuuhei’s big, gray doe eyes, and he kicks himself up into a sitting position so he can see Renji leave the kitchen with rapt, quiet attention.

“Hey, so…” Shuuhei’s voice and face are still thick with sleep. Or maybe that is just how he looks and sounds when he is exposing a sliver of vulnerability. His eye is trained on Renji like he might try to bolt if startled. “Should we, like, talk about this now? Or are you going to be weird again and keep me in the dark? Because that seems to be what people really like doing these days, and honestly it’s getting old.”

Renji has two cracked mugs of steaming tea, which he clinks together nervously under Shuuhei’s scrutiny. He has that look about him, where his lips are pressed in a thin line like he is trying to hide his emotions, as if a Renji repressing his feelings is less suspicious. Without answering Shuuhei’s question, he responds. “Thought you were still resting. ‘Scuse me for not wanting you to be pissy at me because you’re cranky.”

A scoff rips out of Shuuhei’s throat, his body sinking lower behind the back of the couch. “Yeah, if only I had a really good reason to be pissy lately.”

Renji frowns into the depths of the mugs, scowling until Shuuhei disappears behind the wall of cushioning, then dejectedly prowls around the living area to drop himself on the sofa next to Shuuhei and set down both cups.

“Are you okay?”

Shuuhei raises an eyebrow at the question. Fingers interlocked behind his head, he still watches Renji intently, warily. “What do you mean?”

“I mean–” Renji suddenly chugs a mouthful of hot tea, and his face colors in a way that indicates he is either embarrassed or that he just swallowed scalding tea. It could be either one. Smoothing himself out, Renji continues. “I’m sorry I lost my temper back there. It was shitty of me. You shouldn’t have’ta see me lose it like that.”

Finally, Shuuhei’s gray eye slides away from Renji’s face. “It’s okay. Things were complicated.”

“You don’t mean that.” There’s a defeated way that Renji’s shoulders slump, looking with determination at his own hands to avoid looking at Shuuhei. “You always say you’re okay when you’re not. Especially when it’s about me doing something I shouldn’t have done.”

Tentatively, Shuuhei pulls himself up into a sitting position. As Renji slumps back into his seat and Shuuhei leans his elbows on his own knees, they are almost at perfect eye-level. Shuuhei looking dead-on at Renji, and Renji watching out of the corner of his eye.

“You used to be close to Izuru Kira. Really close,” Shuuhei says plainly. “Why didn’t you tell me anything about it?”

Renji makes a low, thoughtful grumbling noise, rubbing the back of his neck. “Because… it’s just hard,” he says, obviously putting a lot of care into his choice of words. Trying hard not to deflect or use his high emotions as a barrier. “It’s hard, and sometimes talking or thinking about something just makes it more difficult to move on. Sometimes the only option you have is to try and forget the bad stuff.”

“Do you think that Izuru was moving on when he said you have feelings for me?”

With that, Renji is up on his feet, pacing away from the couch and muttering under his breath. “For fuck’s sake.”

Shuuhei straightens his posture with his feet solidly on the floor, brows narrowed dangerously and his breath coming out hot and muffled through his canines. “But I bet that’s ‘hard for you to talk about’, too, isn’t it? I kinda have a right to know.”

Renji runs his hands through his ponytail, tearing his fingers through unruly strands and over his inked forehead that is knit with concentration. With every step he takes, as his foot leaves the floor there is a spark of black electricity like static friction keeping him rooted to the ground. The leaves of the plants swinging in their pots begin to writhe gently like they’re searching for the emergency escape.

After less than a minute of finding his space, Renji realizes he’s still standing and needs to answer. He looks oddly small for someone who is over six feet tall, built like a brick shit-house, and has the powers to turn nature on its head. Now he just looks like someone with a lot of regret to lug around.

“I know I’m not the greatest friend to you. I’m not really nice to you all the time. Sometimes I think I’m not real nice to anybody, but it should be different for you.” Licking the outside of his teeth, Renji’s turns to face Shuuhei but he can’t hold his eye contact without heat creeping up his neck from under his collar. “I don’t want– you don’t have t’ like me, Shuuhei. You shouldn’t have to like me just because of this whole… what we have going on. The Witch n’ Familiar thing.”

Shuuhei’s brows rise under his bangs. With his teeth in the way, his expression is indescribable, but if Izuru had to guess he would say there’s something like gentleness in his voice. “I don’t ‘have’ to be your friend, Renji. I just am.”

“But– I mean, are you sure? Like, absolutely sure?” Renji throws his arm, and very quickly he’s become upset. There’s something raspy and raw in his voice now, trying to convince Shuuhei to understand. “You’ve never gotten sick of me or my crappy temper? You’ve never felt like I was a burden t’ you, or that our soul-bond was holding you back somehow? You might want other things out there, Shuuhei! Things that don’t involve me.”

And even though Izuru sees Shuuhei open his mouth to respond, he doesn’t hear any words come out. He doesn’t here, because the vision fizzles out as Izuru’s concentration breaks, and once again he is left alone in an empty, dark room in a practically empty, dark, building. And he can’t be sure if the reason he lost the vision is because of his heart hammering against his chest or his mind spiralling into an exhausted, dissociative fugue until he slowly loses consciousness.

-

History will one day look back on how the public tried to process the appearance of strange, semi-sentient black sludge creatures scurrying around through the city sewers. And, with vexation, they might have to admit there was something kind of weird and beautiful about knights, priests, and Witches finding common ground and economic opportunity in destroying those monsters whenever they threatened citizens.

Of course, the history books won’t know that Izuru was the one who opened that little can of worms in the first place. He can just tally on Gin’s curse to the list of horrible shit he needs to feel responsible for, because Gin can’t stop fucking with him even post-mortem.

At least it’s not all bad. Within only a handful of days since the curse was released, Rangiku has gotten to fight a goop monster the size of a minibus. She came in and sat herself down in the cafeteria with Izuru, dripping blood the color and consistency of oil from her shins down, explaining that it was, “Gross, but fun!”

And so, over a stash of Rangiku’s protein bars and a confiscated bottle of Merlot, Izuru tells her the story of himself and Renji. Right from the beginning to the messy end.

“–then he stormed out, and that was the last time I saw him in person ‘till I asked you to go find him and Shuuhei,” Izuru finishes, topping Rangiku’s glass off and selecting a bar of Big Choco Chunks to cleanse his palette. Izuru is an important representative of a highly influential spiritual organization. “Aaand I think that brings everything up to speed.”

Rangiku sticks her pinky out as she slurps a big mouthful of wine, humming with consideration before lowering her glass to respond. “Well. That is quite a fucking pickle, isn’t it? I could’ve figured there was some deep history between you and Renji, but I’d never heard either of you talk about it.”

“No, I imagine he’s not excited to go sharing around those old stories now.” Izuru swirls his own glass skillfully. He hates the taste of wine. Doesn’t even like grape juice.

“So this whole thing was supposed to be a way to win Renji back. And yet,” Rangiku crosses her legs carefully, then tents her fingers and leans her chin on her hands so she can stare at Izuru intently from across the table. She quirks her eyebrow in intense puzzlement. “It sounds like a certain someone has gotten very attached to Shuuhei, as well, the very person he hoped to use to get close to Renji. What a devilish twist!”

Izuru can’t stop himself from grimacing over the rim of his drink at those words. Technically, he never lied to Shuuhei, but he wasn’t very honest, either. He did use Shuuhei, and Shuuhei didn’t deserve it. “‘Very attached’ might be a little strong…”

Rangiku breaks her thoughtful posture, eyes fluttering shut as she bats the air. “Whatever! The point is that it seems to have feelings for both these guys, but you still haven’t told them the actual reason you joined up with Gin? That’s dumb! You don’t deserve to have Renji or Shuuhei think of you that way.”

He laughs hollowly at that, without meaning to and without humor. “What way? Like a weakling who let Gin bully and humiliate him because he was helpless to do anything to stop it? I can’t just walk away from all of this now, or I would just be admitting that everything I put the Coven through was for nothing.”

“But it’s not the same!” Rangiku argues, and she seems honestly disturbed by the very notion that Izuru would refuse to come clean. She has that look about her, all big eyes and talking with her hands. Izuru has a hard time believing she was once the stoic, tight-lipped bodyguard who made him fear walking in front of her on tall staircases. “You’re a good person, Izuru. You sacrificed yourself to protect your friends. And Renji should know that the person he cares about didn’t betray him.”

Rangiku says ‘person he cares about’ like it’s an ongoing thing. Izuru chews on his nail. Even if Izuru told Renji the truth, what if Renji didn’t forgive him? What if Shuuhei agreed that it wasn’t enough to make up for all the bad?

“If it were you in my position, what would you do?”

Before he even finishes asking, he can see in Rangiku’s eyes that she won’t answer. Which is fine, because Izuru already knows what she would say if she did. She’d say she would do what she always did when she faced a problem: kill it or run away from it.

Instead, she shakes her head defiantly. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not you.”

Izuru sucks in a deep breath through his nose. Remarkable, really, that he can have the power to augment time and space, to make miracles happen, and still feel so powerless. “Do you ever regret helping me betray Gin?”

It’s wildly off topic, and he can’t blame Rangiku for looking surprised at the question with her lips pursing and her fingers curling. Still, she doesn’t deny him, answering with complete honesty in her voice. “I’d regret it more if I didn’t.” And Izuru knows it to be the truth.

“Thanks.” Izuru breathes a sigh of relief. He has that, at least.

It’s later in the evening, with his head still a little too light and airy from an impressively small amount of wine, that Izuru asks himself to make an executive decision. He sits himself down with the least crumpled paper he could find and writes Shuuhei’s name at the top so it’s visible when he folds it up all nice and fancy.

After that, it’s just a matter of struggling with words. It’s well past midnight when Izuru calls Rangiku up, and of course she is awake for him.

“Hey, Rangiku. Can you do something for me?”

-

Izuru’s thoughts are well-occupied the next morning. Of course, he’s hardly ever useful before or even after a mug of black tea, the fact remains that the anxiety he experiences on this particular morning is different than the anxiety he is used to having on a hour-to-hour basis.

He thinks, momentarily, that this must be what the whole ‘butterflies in the stomach’ feeling after asking someone out that people are always talking about. Then he immediately banishes the thought because A) He didn’t ask Shuuhei out, and B) It’s Shuuhei. Besides, Izuru has been on dates before, so it’s not like he’s lacking experience. Even if it’s been a very, very long time.

Shaking himself awake, Izuru blinks himself into a more rational thought process. This isn’t a great start to the day.  

Sitting on the steps in front of the alter, Izuru is the one, inactive eye in the midst of a great hurricane of activity. All the way down the aisle of the front room, they’ve been having people come in with complaints about the black sludge creatures in their homes or workplaces, and every priest is sent into a tailspin to try to help.

“Okay, five of us go down to the First Ward…” A group of priests huddle around and try to divide themselves. Guiltily, Izuru knows that as their boss he should support them, but he can only think that they look just like sheep when they mill around like that dressed in white clothes. “Then we split up, and two of us keep going down that way and the other three take the one on the north side. Uh, does anybody know about the service fee? Like, what do we tell them after we’re done.”

Izuru could roll his eyes. They can’t help it, of course– the priests have been trained that their powers are a service that needs to be bought. Still, he wonders if the Witches living paycheck to paycheck would think twice about destroying a curse on sight even without being paid.

“You don’t tell them anything,” Izuru says tonelessly, and watches the whole herd leap a little before looking over at him like they completely forgot he was here. That probably speaks more to how good a leader Izuru is, which hurts his already battered ego just a little. “This mission is pro bono. Just take care of it and come back.”

“But– Sir, are you sure?”

The Board of Donors sure isn’t gonna be happy about this. “Yes, don’t worry about it. Just get it done the best you can.”

This is probably the most leaderly, boss-like thing Izuru has done in months, which feels pretty fucked up. At the same time, Izuru honestly isn’t sure what he could be doing better. His abilities as Prophet are pretty amazing, but they’re not very useful or applicable for day-to-day events.

When Gin was Prophet, it seemed that he dedicated as much of his time as possible to either being a nuisance or sucking up to the donors. If he ever delegated duties to Izuru, it was something tedious like manual labor. Izuru never balanced the books or hosted parties or did anything of much purpose for the Church. He was just a figurehead. A pretty symbol to be polished and shown off for how mysterious and rare he is like a shiny rock.

“Well, look at you being the big man!”

Izuru has to stomp down the impulse to be wildly embarrassed that Rangiku saw that. He has something else to be wildly embarrassed about when she appears, holding a folded piece of paper between her index and middle fingers that say KIRA in big but surprisingly neat handwriting. “Something you wanna tell me?”

Izuru tries to snatch it from her, and Rangiku could probably break his wrist just for trying but she rolls her eyes and lets him clutch the note protectively. “Did you read it?”

“There wasn’t anything worth reading,” Rangiku complains, which means yes. Of course she read it. “Just… you’re being careful, right? This isn’t gonna be another thing where you forget to think and I have to bail you out of trouble like in the tunnels, right?”

He shakes his head. “I sincerely hope not.”

“That’s not super reassuring…”

The inside of the note has an address. It’s an obscure neighborhood in an obscure little town Izuru has never heard of before. But when he uses his powers to pull back the veil of time and space, he can see a nearly abandoned house out in the woods, with vines climbing up it’s grey wood.

Underneath the address is a little annotation, for Izuru’s benefit. Shuuhei’s blocky handwriting says ‘my house’ with a helpful arrow on a hastily drawn map.

-

Izuru’s not sure what he expected.

Of course he found it peculiar, the way Shuuhei specified ‘my house’. Not ‘mine and Renji’s house’. Just Shuuhei’s. This implies that Shuuhei had a life before Renji’s existence, which is also boggling to Izuru and he’s a little ashamed that he hadn’t considered that.

Subtly, there are still signs of Renji around that may imply that this isn’t just a little place Shuuhei keeps all to himself. Through the overgrown lawn, populated with herds of weeds, the distinctive sight of an idol stone can be seen jutting through the thin sapling. Brown, sturdy tree trunks have the shapes of ruins carved into them pointing outwards from the house to protect it from bad spirits and magic.

Though it’d be more on brand for Izuru to invite himself in, he decides to be courteous and knock on the front door. Instantly, Shuuhei’s voice comes through, sounding distant: “Come in.” And when Izuru enters and locates Shuuhei, he’s sitting at the kitchen table with Rukia.

So. Izuru is thoroughly confused.

“You’re late,” Rukia chides him. She stands up and collects two teacups from the table to carry to the sink, and it occurs to Izuru they’ve had a whole conversation over tea while waiting for him to appear, and this somehow fills him with even more jittery feelings.

Shuuhei, not wearing his muzzle or any protective garment over his face, stretches his arms and shoulders over the table like a cat. The tablecloth is kind of plastic-y material, old fashioned yellow and white checkered that long fell out of aesthetic fashion. “He likes to make a dramatic entrance.”

“Oh, I’m well aware.”

“Hey…” Izuru argues weakly, but most of his concentration is still flitting from Shuuhei to Rukia. His eyes catch the fact that it’s been a long time since he saw Rukia outside of priestess robes. She’s wearing a comfortable pair of black jeans and a hoodie now, and even though it’s not much of an outfit to look at, she looks happier in it. “You look nice.”

She smiles at him, showing teeth and softness. “Thanks. I borrowed some stuff from Momo.” When she pushes back her hair from her face, Izuru accidentally catches a glimpse of cool, cerulean blue under her sleeve, beginning at her wrist and disappearing under the cotton fabric. His happiness at seeing her is at odd ends with an unwelcome surge of revulsion.

“I met up with the Coven and everyone again. It was really cool. I missed everyone a lot,” Rukia says nonchalantly, beginning to scrub the teacups in the sink. “Hey, by the way, did you kill Ichimaru?”

Suffice to say, Izuru wasn’t ready for that. It’s too bad he’s not better at using Rangiku’s ‘running away’ tactic or he would already have one foot out the kitchen window. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be, I just wanted to know if the rumors were true.” Rukia sets both teacups on the drying rack carefully. “Shuuhei said you did, and I thought that was cool. So thank you for that. He was most of why I was too afraid to contact the Coven when I was still in the Church. And also a huge dick. I know what it’s like to… I mean. I’ll just say I know stuff.”

Before he even has time to process it, Izuru feels his eyes sting. Determined, he holds himself back from tearing up, because that’s just the kind of austere, mysterious, super-powered reputation he has to up hold. “Don’t mention it. Rangiku did most of the work anyways.”

Izuru tries to suck in his breath, and it feels too hot inside of him. Putting his knuckles up to his lips, the words tumble out of their own accord. “I’m sorry. I never wanted you or Renji or anyone else to get hurt. I wanted to make things better, but instead I made them worse, and I am so, so sorry–”

Rukia raises her hands with her palms facing out, smiling with embarrassment as she waves him away. “Hey, hey. Don’t worry about that right now, okay? Sometimes you just need to know when to leave that behind.”

Her words sound very oddly like Renji’s, about ‘moving on’ without really specifying what is being moved on from. It occurs to Izuru you can move on from a lot of things — both good and bad.

A jaunty little chiptune comes from Rukia’s pocket, and she quickly retrieves her phone with the rabbit stickers on it. Checking the screen, she sighs. “Sorry, I gotta take this.” Towards Shuuhei, Rukia beams gently. “Thanks for having me over, Shuuhei. And for the tea. And for taking care of Renji for me.”

Shuuhei shrugs nonchalantly, though maybe that’s a trace of a faint smile on the way his jaw is angled. It’s very difficult to say. “Don’t worry about it. Somebody has to.”

She brushes past Izuru to head to the front, and once the rickety door swings behind her it’s just Izuru and Shuuhei, alone again. Shuuhei looks at him with that Izuru thinks might be expectation, or perhaps just slow, aloof patience.

Against his will, Izuru’s mind flickers back to the moment they had in front of the Cathedral, after escaping the catacombs. It had only ever been Izuru’s plan get to Renji through Shuuhei, and in the process he overlooked the fact that Shuuhei was a genuine, fully-fledged personality who was smart, and brave, and funny, and challenged Izuru right to his face when no one else did.

Sure enough, Shuuhei won’t let Izuru off easy this time either. “Renji told me about everything. Well, his side of the story, anyways. I kinda put the rest together with what I know and what Rukia told me. But if there’s something else you need to say, I’m here to listen.”

“I think you know all there is to know by now,” Izuru admits. “Rukia was right. The Prophet before me forced me to give up information that he used to attack the Coven. That’s all.”

Shuuhei kicks the chair that Rukia had just been sitting on, nudging it with his foot. As Izuru resigns himself to sitting down, Shuuhei asks, “So why didn’t you just tell Renji about that? Or even after your old boss was dead.”

“People keep asking me that…” Izuru suppresses a spike of annoyance. It’s not Shuuhei’s fault. Surely, any logical person would want to know the same thing.

That kind of proves that Izuru isn’t very logical, is he?

“It’s just–” Izuru rises and lowers a hand in exasperation. “It’s hard to explain. I couldn’t just leave without making things right after what happened.”

There’s a critical quirk of Shuuhei’s eyebrow that Izuru imagines he gives Renji quite a lot. It does interesting things to the right side of his face with all the scars going down it. “So this wasn’t really about being forced into being the leader. This was more about your pride.”

“That’s oversimplifying,” Izuru argues. “It’s not really fair for you to criticize me for doing irrational things. You’re the one who went along with my strange plans in the catacombs without bothering to ask why.”

“I– jeez, okay, I guess that’s true.” Shuuhei shrugs, and Izuru sees what he thinks is a flush to his face. “I wanted to know what the deal was with you and Renji, and even though he had a beef with you I figured you deserved a chance because Rangiku liked you. You know, you and Renji are a lot more alike than you seem at first.”

Izuru has a feeling that comment fits directly into the comment from before about being prideful. Still, he manages to be oddly touched by that sentiment. “Thank you.”

“Not everyone would think that was a compliment…” Shuuhei adds wryly.

That out of the way, there’s still another conundrum between them. Shuuhei said Renji told him ‘the whole story’ from his side of things. Izuru wonders if that meant he was also successful in driving Shuuhei away, emotionally, so Shuuhei wouldn’t investigate the depths of Renji’s feelings. And there is no denying it by this point. The feelings are definitely there.

“What about you, then? You never answered by question from before,” Izuru says, using his best Cryptid Prophet voice. “About who you are to Renji.”

“Yeah? You already know most of that.” Shuuhei snorts, folding his arms over the table. “I’m Renji’s Familiar. I run errands and help him run around the county looking for trouble and occasionally, once in a blue moon, I go on a wild journey with his ex-boyfriend and almost drown in the ectoplasmic residue of an evil religious idol.”

“And the…” Izuru gestures to the general area of his own face, drawing zig-zags over his lips.

“Spirit of the dead that Renji brought back to life at the cost of a piece of his own human soul.” Shuuhei rolls his eyes and waves his hand nonchalantly. “Oh, don’t act so shocked. You already knew I was dead. How much more dramatic would you expect it to get?”

“That does explain it though, that you have a piece of Renji’s soul in you.”

Shuuhei snorts loudly, huffing through the gap in his teeth. “How does that explain anything?”

“That you match,” Izuru says, and feels his lungs tighten in his chest. “That he cares about you, even though he’s shitty at showing it. And that I think you care about him, too, even though you’re shitty at showing it. That Renji is scared of hurting you because he thinks that by telling you how he feels, he’d be taking advantage of you.”

There’s a moment where Shuuhei doesn’t speak for a while. He just sits and drums his fingers on the table methodically. Izuru can feel the discomfort coming off of Shuuhei in waves, and again what he sees in front of him swims and melts into the days of the past. For years, Renji and Shuuhei as an inseparable partnership. Protecting each other. Fighting for each other. Fighting themselves, as Renji pushes Shuuhei away for fear of getting too close. Acting hard-hearted to protect the one he loves.

Shuuhei is right. Renji and Izuru are far more alike than he thought.

“Yeah, I know,.” Shuuhei finally says. “Doesn’t that kinda… I dunno. Leave out this weird, confusing additional element?”

He points between Izuru and himself, tone wary and suspicious. “I’m not dumb. There was something going on in front of the Cathedral. Do you wanna come clean now, or should I just accept that I magnetically attract guys who are allergic to being direct like a normal person.”

“Well, definitely that.” Izuru runs his hand through his hair. It’s getting long again. We wishes he had an easy answer. He wishes he could tell Shuuhei that he doesn’t have feelings for him, that it was only still Renji. Alternatively, he could say that he’s over Renji, and only interested in Shuuhei. But Shuuhei already told him to be honest, so he can’t say either of those. “I don’t know. It’s just really complicated right now. I’m sorry.”

Shuuhei sighs deeply, letting his head fall forward onto his arms. “Yeah, that figures.” Izuru figures that this is the wrong time to tell him it’s his own fault. If he hadn’t been so brave and admirable and sweet, Izuru wouldn’t have ended up so tragically endeared to him. Stupid, attractive Shuuhei.

Izuru has to admit, though, that he’s left Shuuhei in a pickle. What if, for example, he decided to return Renji’s feelings?

… That, of course, assumes the alternative answer is that Shuuhei would return Izuru’s feelings. His non-existent feelings that definitely aren’t real. And even if they were, Shuuhei isn’t attracted to Izuru. He’s just a nice, monstery guy who Izuru saved heroically and then had an intimate moment with where they stared into each other’s eyes and then he invited Izuru to his private property to see him again. Absolutely no mixed signals there.

This is confusing and also dumb.

Izuru tries to cough nonchalantly, but it ends up sounding more like a weak grunt. He surveys the kitchen for lack of anything else to distract himself. The inside of this house really does look like the inside of a retro magazine. “So.. this is your house. From when you were human?”

Shuuhei scratches his chin. “Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think so. I haven’t gotten any memories back, but I. Like, I kinda think I grew up here?”

“That kind of deal, huh?” Izuru’s heart twists for Shuuhei. Not entirely sure if it’s because Shuuhei always has it rough, or because Izuru has it painfully bad for him. “I’m sorry. That has to be rough.”

Shuuhei’s fangs grind together thoughtfully. Izuru never noticed how sometimes Shuuhei’s bad eye drifts off from the direction of its counterpart, looking in two separate directions. “That’s what Renji always said, too. I told him I was okay with it, though. Maybe it’s not so bad being a freak. It makes it makes it easier to pick out who’s fake.”

Izuru tries for a smile, and it feels raw and watery on his lips. “Wish I’d thought thought to try that.”

A hum leaves Shuuhei’s maw as he brings himself to stand. He looks like he’s heading towards the exit of the kitchen and Izuru wonders if he should also stand before Shuuhei turns back and walks back towards him. With his shoulders hunched, it looks like he’s pacing. It’s kind of amazing, that even without a mouth to make human expressions with, Shuuhei finds so many ways to communicate with his body. Izuru is even more surprised that he’s learning to read those signs.

Dragging his fingers through his hair and over the back of his neck, Shuuhei glares at the cracked linoleum floor before looking at Izuru. “Look, I was gonna wait and try to get Renji to tell you, but you should know — it’s not a coincidence that Rukia fucked off from the Church when she did. She has this plan. There are these two real powerful Witches who used to lead the Coven way back when–”

“Unohana…” Izuru supplies, unable to hide the shock in his voice. How many years has it been since he heard anyone talk about them? Surely not since they disappeared and the media that had been smearing Unohana conveniently forgot who she was. “And Kenpachi…”

“Yeah, those. Jeez, I forgot you were in on all this. Well, Rukia thinks she can find them now that she’s back, and she wants the rest of Witches to come with. I think they’re really gonna. And I’m gonna go because someone’s gotta keep Renji alive, and the Witches are…”

Shuuhei seems to lose track of his sentence, letting it trail off limpy. Izuru fills it for him, nostalgia washing over him like a crashing wave. “…like family.”

Another big sigh takes some of the intimidating looming out of Shuuhei’s lanky figure, his gray eyes fluttering shut. “…Yeah. So. All I mean is, if you’re really still serious about this. About making good with the Coven and winning Renji back and all, you need to just suck it up and do it. No more lurking around in the shadows and getting Rangiku to run secret messages for you, because if you miss out and we leave… I don’t know when we’re coming back.”

That makes sense. Of course it does. How long have the Witches been quarantined to the corners of town, living in a condemned building and in mobile wagons? How many years did Rukia spend, having her past erased and redefined for her? At what point would all the misery that they’d collect be enough that they decided it was enough? That it was time to move on…

Izuru feels himself swallow dryly. “Okay. I’ll try.”

“Alright. Good.” This seems to reassure Shuuhei a little. Nervously, he looks back towards the door where Rukia is supposedly outside. Looking back at Izuru, Shuuhei jabs a thumb in that direction. “I should go, soon. Renji thinks that he’s good at packing, but he can’t fold for shit.”

Izuru prepares to see himself out, but in the parlor when he tries to reach for the door, he finds his progress impeded. The strong, firm, warm grip of Shuuhei is suddenly tight around his bicep, and Izuru finds himself looking at Shuuhei through the long fringe of his black hair. Shuuhei’s hot breath is like a radiator through his jagged fangs.

“Hey.” Shuuhei’s voice is a rasp. Izuru notices that Shuuhei smells just like Renji. “Tell me that I’ll see you again.”

As if Izuru could find it in himself to deny that request. “You’ll see me again.”

“Good.” And just like that, Shuuhei’s hand moves to Izuru’s shoulder. It’s heavy, and it must be Shuuhei’s inhuman strength that feels like he’s knocking the wind out of Izuru. In a single motion he leans in and presses the flat of his long teeth against Izuru’s smooth cheek, and he feels a scraping of soft lips between the gums and the bones. By all logical means, it should be the least romantic kiss that has ever happened, but Izuru feels heat blossom in his belly and wind roar in his head. He burns with affection.

Outside, Rukia is sitting on the porch. Izuru can see from over her shoulder that she’s playing a game on her phone where she matches up little symbols that look like bats and skulls and intestines, and Izuru as the wild idea that she might have been idling away out here waiting for Izuru and Shuuhei to leave. “Hey, you two.”

“Important phone call?” Shuuhei says dryly, and Izuru is unable to restrain a snort.

Rukia gives him a sour look, the kind she gave out freely as a sassy child. “As a matter of fact. Matsumoto wanted to know how you guys’ date went. I told her I wasn’t going to spy on you to give her the spicy details.”

“You gave Rangiku your number?” Izuru asks in genuine surprise, interrupting whatever assuredly snarky thing Shuuhei was about to retort with.

“Nope. I have genuinely no idea how she texted me.” Rukia knits her brows at her phone screen, but she’s smiling. “Matsumoto’s pretty weird, right? She’s not what I expected a knight to be like. How is she doing, by the way? She seemed pretty exhausted when I saw her at the Cathedral.”

“Yes. Sorry about that. I keep her busy,” Izuru says, and wonders if maybe it isn’t him and Shuuhei that Rangiku wants spicy details from.

Rukia brushes her hair behind her ears and out of her face, pocketing her phone even as Izuru sees a very distinctive message full of kitty cat emojis pop on screen. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot, lately. Now that I’m not a priestess, anymore. It really sucked that I didn’t have any friends at the Church, and I know you must have felt that way for even longer on your own. I think maybe Rangiku must’ve felt that way, too.”

At once, Rukia’s eyes flash to look at Izuru directly, and he’s wildly caught off guard by the way Rukia can go from gentle to fierce in hardly a hair’s breath. Deep down, she’s as fiery as she ever was. “So make sure you take care of her.”

Izuru doesn’t bother to point out how usually it’s Rangiku who’s taking care of him. Because A) that should be plain as day, and B) Rukia is right. Rangiku has been through so many hardships of her own. Because of Gin. Because of Izuru. She’s given up so much for him, and asked so little in return.

The least he can do is learn from her selflessness. “I will.”

That proves to the the right thing to say, because Rukia suddenly shoots forwards with a quick, crushing hug before pulling back. It’s far better than the stiff handshake from before. Izuru remembers why this girl was like a sister to him. “Then I’ll see you soon. Take care of yourself, too.”

“Same from me,” Shuuhei adds, and he sidesteps to stand next to Rukia. “I’m gonna remember your promise.”

Izuru watches them both, one petite figure and one tall, lanky one, wave him off as the dissolve into a puddle of glowing white light. It sinks into the dark wood of the house’s porch before slipping between the gaps in the panel, leaving behind a faint ringing in Izuru’s ears and the taste of evermint between his teeth.

The image of them is burned into Izuru’s mind. Rukia’s arms enveloping him like a flash of lightning. Shuuhei’s mouth like smooth glass over his skin. There’s only one piece of Izuru missing.

-

Izuru can’t deny that more than a few things have changed about Renji since he last had the chance to get close to him. His figure has broadened, magical powers taking an enormous toll on his body and demanding that Renji be able to pay that tax. The way he wears his hair different, the way he carries himself when he walks.

The way his voice has a deeper, harsher tone to it. It tastes like fire and ice to Izuru’s ears.

“The hell are you doin’ here? None of your fans are around.”

Renji doesn’t seem shocked to see Izuru, even in this grimy, lonely train station where Izuru knew he would be on his way home from a job. His Witch’s kit hangs from his shoulder, and a frown sits crookedly on his face. Izuru realizes that he’s become so used to seeing Renji and Shuuhei attached to the hip, Renji looks smaller when he’s all by his lonesome under the yellow, fluorescent lights.

“It’s only me,” Izuru confirms. He’s so nervous, it feels like this moment is made of glass. One wrong move could shatter it. “Look, before you storm off, can we talk for a little.”

This doesn’t impress Renji. Izuru conveniently recalls that the last time they saw each other, he revealed Renji’s feelings for Shuuhei, which definitely hasn’t endeared Izuru to him. Renji’s lips pull over his teeth in a sneer, and he gives Izuru a two-fingered salute before starting to walk down to the platforms. “For old time’s sake? Nah, I’m good, so you can stop fucking following me. Tell Rangiku I said hey.”

“I want to talk to you,” Izuru exhales, and he has to work to make his voice heard over the sound of blood singing in his ears. “Because I decided that you deserved to know the truth.”

Renji stops walking. Izuru pats the spot next to him on the train station bench where he’s seated.

Izuru graciously waits until Renji is reluctantly seated with a hefty sigh. Both of them are quiet for a cautious moment. Izuru’s hands are folded over his legs, and he tries not to focus on how Renji smells like musk and firewood. “Start talking.”

“Yes, well.” Izuru’s blue thumbs press against each other thoughtlessly. This is already much more difficult than explaining to Rangiku had been. “You remember the first time that I disappeared from the Coven–”

“Ran away.”

“–yeah, when I ran away,” Izuru amends. “It wasn’t because I wanted to. Gin Ichimaru — you remember Ichimaru, don’t you? He was there when you came to yell at me about the Church recruiting Rukia. Well, really funny thing about that- turns out that wanted to basically keep me in the Church as his personal chew toy, and if I didn’t comply with everything he said, he was going to come after you and the other Witches.”

Renji is very quiet, leaving a long drop of silence hanging after Izuru finishes. When Izuru risks glancing his way, he just sees the wall of Renji’s face. The stern, waiting glare under tightly furrowed, tattooed eyebrows. He knows, in the way that he knows Renji, that he must be reliving those days all the years ago when Izuru first tried to remove himself from Renji’s life.

“I didn’t tell Ichimaru about you, or Unohana, or Rukia, or anyone else,” Izuru says seriously. “I didn’t want to hurt you more than I already had. That’s why I had to stay away. I wanted to — I wished I could protect you. That’s what I tried to do, anyways. It didn’t exactly work out, but you already know that part.”

Renji leans back on the bench. He spreads one arm over the backrest and his other hand comes to pinch the bridge of his nose. Water drips from a leaky pipe somewhere in the ghostly train station and Izuru is worried he’ll have to actually speak again until Renji’s voice booms.

“So you were just gonna keep this whole thing from me?” Renji summarizes, and that is definitely anger in his voice. Izuru can’t stop himself from being disappointed, though he swore to himself he’d keep his expectations low. Meanwhile, color is already creeping up Renji’s neck. “All those times I came to visit you in that fucking church to make sure you were okay. All those years before than when we said we were gonna be there for each other and protect each other. That just didn’t mean shit to you?”

“Of course it meant something to me! It meant everything to me!” Izuru hears his voice go loud and high, his blood running cold in his body. “I was trying to keep you safe!”

“But you _didn’t_ , Izuru!” Renji is up, on his feet. His eyes are livid, body tense and tight. Black magic twitches from his fingers to his feet and somewhere in the corner one of the overhead lights of the station pops. “You put me in danger. Me, and Rukia, and Momo and Ikkaku and yourself and everybody else! You left us, and you didn’t trust us to stay with us, and you never even _apologized_!”

“I–”

“Wanted t’ protect me?” Renji supplies, and his eyes fill with black. There’s a note of pleading in his voice. Of desperate disappointment. “I wanted to protect _you_ , but you obviously didn’t care about that! How did you think I was gonna feel, knowing that you threw our future away — _your_ future away, for me? Was I s’posed to be impressed by that?”

It’s too much. It’s too much all at once, and the worst part is Izuru can’t say anything to defend himself. He feels frozen, like he’s turning to stone with every second that goes by. Like he’s under a new curse from Renji, but this one doesn’t even require magic to make Izuru feel like he’s been damned.

The Prophet’s ring on Izuru’s finger is as cold as ice. The scene of the train station begins to go dark as Izuru realizes he’s running away again, pulling himself out of the here and now. The last thing he sees is Renji’s voice dissolve from furious-disappointed to just disappointed as Izuru slips out of the train station and back into the empty comfort of his own bedroom.

-

To say Shuuhei is relieved to get out of the good old Abarai-Hisagi household would be a severe understatement. It’s not that he hasn’t come to appreciate his little quiet time, what with Renji awkwardly still dancing around him and his own apparent inability to process his emotions. But Shuuhei is coming to the realization that some space might do them both some good.

And if anyone is curious — no, Shuuhei hasn’t figured out what he’s going to do about Renji and/or Izuru. He doesn’t have a damn clue.

Shuuhei has honestly never considered being romantic with anyone before. It’s hardly the first thing to grace his thoughts in the morning, when he’s running his toothbrush over half of his face. He’s not exactly slathering on aftershave with the thought of attracting some hot young thing to his zoologically improbable self.

So when a text from Rangiku pops up and offers to take Shuuhei out for a fun round of cleaning up Gin’s curse around town, he has to admit it’s better than hanging around moping all day.

“I can’t believe you’re gonna be leaving!” Rangiku wails as soon as she sees him round the corner, absolutely assaulting him with a rib-crushing hug. “This sucks! You and Renji better write me all the time or else I’m gonna hunt you down and kick your asses.”

“Hi, Rangiku,” Shuuhei wheezes, kicking his feet a little until the knight sets him back down on the solid ground. A charming, snorting snicker informs him of a third guest on their outing. “Hey, Rukia.”

Rukia shoves her hands into the pockets of her long skirt, watching Rangiku’s public display of platonic affection with an amused smile on her lips. She’s allowed to laugh at him, because she’s been a great distraction for Shuuhei. And, almost more importantly, for Renji, who damn near lost his whole mind when Rukia showed up out of the blue and asked him if she could crash on the couch.

With her back, things almost feel like they’re normal.

“I told Rangiku about the move. She’s still processing it,” Rukia says, patting Rangiku fondly on the hip. As a result, she’s completely unprepared for Rangiku to turn on her heels and squeeze Rukia next, and Rukia must be a lot more awkward than Shuuhei remembers because she gracelessly squawks and flails in Rangiku’s firm, warm embrace.

“This is such bullshit! I only met you guys this year, and you’re already gonna be leaving me. Obviously you’re still gonna visit me to hang out. Of course you are.” Rangiku drops a thoroughly flustered Rukia and tightens her fists to throw them in the air with a frustrated yowl. “Gosh! Let’s go find some goop monster for me to take my feelings out on already.”

Rukia brushes her hair back, face a little pink from the sudden embrace. Shuuhei wonders if maybe he isn’t the only one who keeps finding himself caught off-guard by Rangiku’s charisma. “Is she always like this?”

“No,” Shuuhei shrugs. “This is how she handles being somber.”

-

When the early evening reaches around the horizon, the three of them are still on their feet. Shuuhei feels like he’s doing work as usual, running all around town doing errands. The only thing missing is Renji occasionally slipping him in and out of trouble.

Speaking of Renji, it’s been awhile since Shuuhei has checked in with him. Shuuhei finds himself rubbing his temple, almost waiting expectantly for his soul bond with Renji to kick in, or for the massive shape of his Witch to come rising out of his own shadow.

“I feel kind of bad that we’re going to be leaving the town like this,” Rukia admits, which snaps Shuuhei back into focus and he remembers what he’s doing. He’s helping Rukia bandage up Rangiku’s knee that she managed to scrape up, because of course she did. “We didn’t even put a dent in the Curse today. Are the knights gonna be able to take care of it?”

Rangiku waves her hand around nonchalantly, barely avoiding slapping Shuuhei and ending up patting Rukia in the top of her head. “Knights. Priests. Witches. Ordinary citizens with spray bottles. I’m not worried. As far as magical pests go, these things are a lot easier to take care of in small doses than, like, poltergeists or hollows or giant man-eating spiders.

“That got pretty specific towards the end there,” Shuuhei points out dryly, handing the last extra-large band-aid to Rukia so she can apply it with a suspicious look of incredulity.

“Giant man-eating spiders?”

“Sure. I mean, what kind of self-respecting hero hasn’t vanquished a few carnivorous spiders of unusual size in her day?” Rangiku boasts, posing powerfully and flashing the kind of grin where Shuuhei has no idea how truthful she’s being. “Of course, ‘giant’ is kind of subjective. Each one was about as big as a breadbox.”

Shuuhei makes a face, momentarily forgetting that his own tongue of unusual size will roll out. Rukia folds her arms over her knees with a challenging, almost ambitious grin. “Oh, sure. Really giant, hm? When I was a kid, I charmed spiders until they were the size of cats and we made them race. Catching them was the easy part.”

“Really?” Rangiku’s mood flips on a dime, and suddenly her voice goes from boisterous to sultry. She bats her eyes for dramatic effect as she pretends to swoon. “You must have been sooo brave.” Shuuhei suddenly is under the impression that he is third-wheeling hardcore. He coughs loudly just to make sure Rangiku is reminded of his presence.

“Yeah, but that was back when we hung out with Kira. So… you can kinda imagine how long it’s been.” Rukia continues, but her expression falls.

Finally, a topic Shuuhei can weigh in on. “You guys used to be really close, weren’t you?”

“Sure. We were years ago.” Rukia shakes her head, her frown borders on becoming a scowl. “It’s weird. I worked for him for so long, and I missed being friends with him, but with that power dynamic changing between us I just didn’t know how to feel about him. It’s hard to undo that kind of thinking.”

“Izuru’s been through a lot. He did the best he could under the circumstances,” Rangiku points out, and even though her face stays even Shuuhei hears a stubborn edge to her tone.

“I know, I know. Trust me. I get where he’s coming from. I’m just saying, I can also understand why Renji is still frustrated.” Rukia presses, crumpling up the wrapper from Rangiku’s band-aid and stuffing it into her own pocket with more force than necessarily. Like a spotlight, her dark gaze lands on Shuuhei. “What about you, Shuuhei? Have you heard anything from Renji about what he’s gonna do?”

“About Kira?” Shuuhei feels a twinge of discomfort. He already feels awkward about getting in the middle of that as it is, let alone gossiping to someone else. “I don’t–”

Gradually, but very quickly, a prickle of heat ignites in the core of Shuuhei’s chest. It spreads outwards from his bones over his whole body like a sudden wave of hotness. It doesn’t hurt, only makes him feel suddenly kind of tight under his skin, but the force of it almost causes Shuuhei to black out. He puts his hand to his forehead until his sights stop swimming. “Woah…”

“What is it? Shuuhei, you look like you’re going to pass out.”

“No, I’m fine,” Shuuhei promises, and sure enough the heat dissipates. All that he has left, however, is a powerful sense of foreboding. Like a bad omen. “I think it’s Renji. Our soul-thing is acting up, I think. I should go check on him.”

“Do you need help?”

Standing up on his feet, Shuuhei has to do the mental math. If he takes the train out of town, he should be able to get to the wagon in a matter of minutes. “I got it– Oh, hey.” As Shuuhei pats himself down for his wallet, fingers find a shape under the material of his jacket. “Listen, before I go real quick. Rukia, you worked at the Church?”

“Yeah, that was kind of my whole deal,” Rukia says crossly. “Why?”

“What’s this doo-hickey?” Shuuhei retrieves the pendent he found in the Catacombs and allows it to hang freely from it’s chain in his hands. He meant to ask Renji about it ages ago, but between Izuru, Rukia, and the move, everything has been a little too hectic. The two crescents in the center of the pendant, like angel’s wings, twist and spin freely.

Rukia snatches it without another word, which immediately makes Shuuhei testy. She holds it up to her eye and hums thoughtfully. “Huh. You got an emblem, huh? What a weird patron you’ve got there.”

“I don’t have a patron.”

“You do now.” She hands the pendant back to Shuuhei. “If I remember right, the Witches’ name for that god is the Wind Death God, the deity of rebirth, mischief, and balance.”

Weird. Shuuhei gives the pendent another look. It still looks like an ordinary necklace to him. “I didn’t find it with the Witches, though. I found this in the catacombs of the cathedral.”

“Well, sure. He’s one of the few gods that both the Church and the Witches share. Though the Church has another name for him.” Rukia smirks like something is funny. “The Church calls him ‘Death’. Lucky you.”

-

The first sign that something is off when Shuuhei reaches the train station is the scorch marks on the cement floors and walls. Black burns around the overhanging archway threaten to swallow Shuuhei like an enormous, hungry mouth.

Yes, Shuuhei can already tell. This looks a little more extreme than one of Renji’s temper tantrums.

The walk inside is a brief tour of human misery. A pipe in the ceiling has been broken and bent in a right angle, spraying a shallow mist of water against the wall. Shuuhei can see cracks in the cement in the shape of fists, the broken stone crackling out like spiderwebs or broken bones.

Renji’s tantrums aren’t just an everyday occurrence, despite what some opinions might hold. A true outburst is rare, and often Renji has to wait until he can take his anger out on something he doesn’t mind not getting back. Shuuhei is appreciative that it looks like that ‘thing’ was the station and not Izuru.

“Hey, big guy.” Shuuhei says to the shape of Renji folded in on himself on the bench. The black tendrils writhe at his feet and across his hands like snakes as Renji sits with his arms folded over his knees and his head on top of his arms. “You look like a fuckin’ disaster.”

-

Best case scenario, Shuuhei could have talked Renji into using the Witch Way to get them home. Except, of course, that somebody used their supply of magic trashing a public train station, so it’s the 10:45 as anticipated for these young adventurers.

Renji doesn’t talk much on the ride, which is about as rare as it is wholly unnerving. Shuuhei doesn’t mind the time to think, however, and to not concentrate on tenseness of Renji’s shoulders pressed against his own, or the dark and haunted look in his eyes. Renji glared holes into his own reflection in the glass window like he is thinking of how to dissect himself from skin to bone.

For someone who’s spent roughly several years with Renji, it’s still vexing to Shuuhei how contradictory he could be. For someone who seems intent on pushing every hazard and relic of his past away, Renji sure didn’t hesitate to welcome Shuuhei into his home when he was a stranger. Or to give Rangiku a place to stay with hardly a word. It’s entirely possible for someone to be as full of kindness and sincerity as he is with frustrating stubbornness.

Renji speaks up for the first time since they took their seats, and as he does, his eyes flicker to Shuuhei’s reflection in the window next to his. “The Coven doesn’t have a set date for when we’re s’posed to leave,” he announces. “But I’m hoping it’s gonna be before the end of the week.”

When they enter the wagon, Shuuhei can freely observe Renji set about his own, exhausted routine. The magic charms that keep this wagon operating as a home are beginning to fade, the white and red runes on the walls and floors beginning to sink into the wood and look a little less like an ancient language and more like some artsy squiggles.

Immediately, Renji sets about to the ritual for recharging his powers, dragging his feet to the back closet where he can unpack a small shrine that is traditionally for outdoor use or re-gifted on weddings. The red, ruby eyes of the Baboon God flicker and catch the light as Renji disinfects a small hat pin.

“So,” Shuuhei says with pointed bluntness, as Renji carves a thin line across the soft center of his palm. Shuuhei smells iron in the air before he even sees red blood dripping onto the base of the idol. “How’d it go with Izuru?”

As if that wasn’t painfully obvious.

He has to wait a minute, leaning against the table with his arms folded over his chest for Renji to respond. Shuuhei expects him to rebuff, or distract, or say something bitingly sarcastic, but the edge of Renji Abarai never comes.

“I’m sorry.”

Renji’s body doesn’t change. His shoulders are still stiff and his narrow eyes are concentrated on tracing patterns of blood at the statue’s feet. It’s only the fact that Shuuhei is watching Renji’s lips move that he can testify that those words are actually coming out of Renji’s mouth. “I’m sorry, ‘cuz I know you have feelings for Izuru. I’m sorry that I still have feelings for him, too. I’m sorry that you’ve gotta be attached to me instead of going to be with him. I’m sorry, and I wish I could fix, and if there’s anything I can do to make it up t’ you, I’ll do it.”

“How do you know I have feelings for him?” Shuuhei tests, using a careful voice.

“I can sense it.” Renji answers while raising his hand (the unbloodied one) to gesture towards the area of his chest. “In here.” In his soul.

He says it not too quickly but all at once, which marching, uninterrupted tempo of someone who has spent a long time internally rehearsing. It doesn’t stop the underlying rasp of vulnerability in the back of Renji’s throat. The clue to indicate that Renji does see — always has seen — himself as the obstacle to Shuuhei’s happiness. That if Renji were to be honest with Shuuhei, to love him, he would be forcing Shuuhei into a relationship in which he is powerless.

Unfortunately for Renji, Shuuhei has never been powerless in his dynamic. And Shuuhei can’t fully dismiss a twinge of exasperation at that very idea.

“What makes you so sure I hate being attached to you?” Shuuhei points out, stalking closer so that he can watch Renji’s hand heal itself. Skin stitches together like fine, pink threads, leaving behind only the faintest abrasions. “Just ‘cuz I tell you when you’re being stupid and complain a lot?”

That actually manages to crack a smile from Renji, snorting shallowly. “I figured you did that to let me know I was an asshole.”

Renji’s hand is warm where Shuuhei touches it, placing it palm-up for inspection. Shuuhei’s finger traces the thin, white line in the center of Renji’s palm. He could swear he could feel Renji’s heartbeat through his skin, feel the red like his blood, and his hair, and his temper and his passion. “It’s because I care about you, shitlord. Sure, you might get on my nerves a lot, but you only get worse when you’re pushing people away.”

It’s reasonable for Renji to be shocked and flustered. How many times has Shuuhei reached out to Renji like this? Or when was the last time they had an open, honest communication? The moment wraps around Shuuhei like the crushing, rib-cracking weight of Renji’s arms when he all but tackled him after that successful mission with Rangiku and the hollow from what seems like ages ago.

Shuuhei watches Renji’s throat stretch as he swallows. His fingers twitch to move and cover his palm where Shuuhei is still gripping him, but he stubbornly keeps his hand open. “I wanna stay with you, and keep doing stupid, crazy shit and see the world with you. You make me happy, Shuuhei.”

“Then let’s do that, a’right?” Shuuhei says, and this time he squeezes Renji’s wrist. He can definitely feel the heat coming from him this time. It felt like when he half-kissed Izuru before, like his brain is on autopilot and for once he doesn’t need to think of a million things before he knows the right thing to say. “But I need you to meet me halfway, Renji. No more distractions or saying now’s not a good time. You have to tell me stuff, even if it’s hard.”

“I– yeah, okay. I will. I’m gonna.” Renji’s eyes slide from Shuuhei to the floor then back again, lips parted as heat rises to his skin.

“Can i tell you that I wanna kiss you?”

Shuuhei’s hand curls around Renji’s square jaw, and pulls him in, leading him towards the mark of Shuuhei’s face. There’s a searing, impossibly soft spark where Renji’s lips connect with the space of Shuuhei’s forehead, and at once the layers of the huge, intimidating world around them unravel and things are simple. Easy. Kind.

There’s a little, swift ‘pop’ of the overhead lantern going out.

“I think your magic is back.”

-

Usually, impeding the progress of bureaucracy is a task that takes care of itself. Other times, Izuru has to step in and offer a divine hand.

There’s a thick stack of envelopes taking up valuable empty space on Izuru’s coffee table. Picking distastefully at the corner of one, he already knows that it contains a strongly worded essay about the stark decrease in budget for the Church’s annual donor’s brunch, followed by a nosy, one-person interrogation asking what exactly Izuru is doing with all of the Church’s money, and they heard about the humors — he’s not really sending out priests to do work for free, is he? The sheer absurdity of it all.

Izuru take a minute to gather his thoughts, convincing himself to enjoy the quiet moments as he feeds the letters one by one into the burning orange fireplace. That’s a little better.

He won’t be able to keep the board of donors at bay for long. One way or another, those rich old fossils will find a way to worm their will back into the status quo of this old Church, but right now it’s important that Izuru halts them as much as possible. The sounds of deities, needy and harsh and grating, mumble in his ears. His hearing and his sight flickers, threatening to melt Izuru’s vision into a confusing distortion of the future, the past, and the present. 

Izuru rubs the narrow bridge of his nose with cold fingers. A wave of dizziness crosses over him, then dies down until the low rumble of the God of Penitence drowns out the other voices. It weighs them down and smothers them until they’ve sunken into the back of Izuru’s skull. The gods are upset, but that’s not unusual. Izuru is pretty upset a lot, too, and his motivations will prove to be a lot more effective than some dusty, wailing little voice causing a ruckus in his head.

There’s a stiffness in Izuru’s legs that comes from being inside too long, and it’s a sensation he’s felt pretty fucking often in the last handful of years. This building is huge and complicated but it makes him claustrophobic. It’s secretive and unwelcoming, like the feeling of always being watched.

But, of course, anyone who sees Izuru lurking about might inquire the location of his loyal best friend and bodyguard. To which Izuru isn’t inclined to give an answer, but he would know for himself that she was outside, just down the road, enthusiastically helping Rukia buy everything she needed for her departure, as well as more than a few things that she didn’t need.

He would know there was a street in the shopping district where almost every store was preparing to close, the streetlamps popping into illumination to combat the creeping darkness from outside. He’d know the petite shape of Rukia dressed up in blacks and flannels and the taller form of Rangiku in eye-popping light blues and pinks, the latter of which proudly held several shopping bags in her raised arms as if she were about to go charging into battle with them.

“You really didn’t have to do all this,” Rukia says, with the patient kind of tone that shows she knows exactly whose benefit this was really for. She brushes back her hair, seeming to forget that it’s now too short to be tucked behind her ears.

Rangiku smiles dazzlingly, lifting the armfuls of purchases in a way that conveniently allows her to flex. “But what if it’s cold where ever you guys are going? You’re gonna need these sweaters! Or if you go to a beach and have to look under the ocean. Or if you’re gonna sneak into a fancy gala party–”

“Yeah, I think we’ve got everything covered.” Rukia smirks, shoving her hands into her jacket pocket. There’s a scarf wrapped around her shoulders, white with black butterflies. She smells like spices, and the pizza the two of them just had for dinner. “Thanks, though, for coming with me. I think I’m still getting used to living on my own again, and doing my own shopping and junk. It feels I don’t know even how to talk to people.”

“Aww, you’re just a little rusty. I felt that way a lot, coming back from missions with the Cohort before I was a bodyguard.” Rangiku counters flippantly.

She means, of course, before she was Gin’s bodyguard, and then Izuru’s. Back when Rangiku did real missions, running out into battle as a mercenary or a warrior. As opposed to now, where time for real adventures has dwindled down to practically nothing because she has to be at Izuru’s beck and call.

Rukia raises her eyebrow. “Oh? But don’t you miss being out and exploring? I almost wish you could come with us. The Coven is pretty much guaranteed to land in some shit on our epic quest, and it’d be cool if someone with actual survival skills was there.”

“Pffft, I’ll bet.” Rangiku scoffs, beaming before the joking humor slowly lifts from her face. What’s left is a shockingly earnest shine in her eyes, Rangiku pausing before turning to Rukia. “I wouldn’t mind that, you know.”

They both stop, standing in the middle of the street, and appear to be frozen. Rukia looks suitably surprised, while the color crossing Rangiku’s face precedes her flustered, breathless bark of laughter. “I’m kidding, jeez. I’m way past my days of packing my shit up and running off into the middle of nowhere on a whim. Besides, I gotta stick around and take care of Izuru.”

There’s a critical frown that passes over Rukia’s face, one of doubt and sadness. “Are you su-”

“Yes, yes! Gosh, Rukia, I was teasing!” Rangiku flashes a blinding grin and gives Rukia a joking shove on the arm that almost send the Witch reeling into the gutter with a squeak. Once Rukia regains her balance with two feet solidly on the pavement, some of the tension has been graciously drained away.

“If you say so…” Rukia hums, and her chest falls in a heavy sigh all at once. “Still, I wish you could’ve known Izuru and Renji from way back when, when we were growing up. They were completely different together.”

Rangiku’s eyes are impossibly soft, crinkling around the edges as her pink lips curve around a broad smile. “Yeah, they sound like good kids.”

-

The early morning sunlight is harshly foreign to Izuru’s eyes, as well as the refreshing, unfamiliar smell of fresh air and outdoors. It’s been a long time since he did much exploring of the great outdoors- not since the first Coven, probably. He had forgotten the way that the big pine trees loomed into the sky, their branches spread like nets to catch the sunlight and only allowing some slivers of gold to filter through.

The dark, wet mud sucks in Izuru’s sneakers, rain dappling the shoulders of Rangiku’s black fleece that he had ‘borrowed’ from her things. It didn’t feel appropriate, somehow, to wear what he normally wore on this encounter.

Izuru’s hands keep reaching for his the ring finger on his left hand, searching for the ring to twist over his knuckle. When the pads of his fingers find only his skin, there’s a renewed sense of relief with the absence of metal. Every time, a small breath escapes him.

Renji’s wagon is up ahead of him.

Sure, there was nothing in particular about their last encounter that implied Renji would be happy to see him again. There certainly wasn’t an invitation to come stop by his and Shuuhei’s home. On the other hand — well, Izuru already tried not acting. This is employing a different approach.

As he gets closer, Izuru has to notice that the wagon doesn’t look the way it did in his visions. He had seen it so many times before, lurking from miles away and making sure the people inside stayed safe. In those times, the wagon always looked warm and welcoming. Maybe it wasn’t spotless, gleaming under a fresh coat of paint, but it was clean and modest. Often there was smoke floating from the top of some unseen orifice and orange lights in the window. It had every look of a mysterious vessel from some long ago folktale that a hero might stumble upon in a misty valley.

What now lies before Izuru now isn’t… well, it isn’t promising. Gone is the tail of smoke and the glowing windows. Izuru can’t spot any runes done in white chalk across the tree trunks or set in a path of stones across the soft ground. Even the wood of the wagon seems to have dulled and grayed, wisps of moss chewing away at the corners of planks as Izuru pulls himself up to the big step in front of the door.

There are wide cracks in the wood, through which Izuru can see the empty interior of a wooden carnival wagon that it looks like nobody has even touched for many years. This must be what happens to a Witch’s lair when it’s drained of its magic. Izuru stubbornly knocks his fist against the door, and tries to squash down the rising panic that threatens to squeeze his throat.

No, what is he doing? Of course he’s too late, once again. Every time, he hesitates. He waits. He makes excuses for himself and he misses his opportunity and this time he can’t get it back.

Izuru’s hands run through his hair, pulling on his bangs in frustration until his scalp aches and his head hurts. Surely, he could still use his vision to track them down. To find Renji, like he has trained himself to so many times before. Or is that stupid? Was this his one, final chance to turn his life around and now he has to just take this as a sign to give up?

Should he finally just let Renji go? Let Shuuhei live his life?

“Hey.”

Izuru’s heart feels like it’s leaping from his chest, up his throat and into his mouth. He knows, in that split second, there can only be one person who would meet him here.

Renji has a big, heavy-looking canvas bag over his shoulder, and a charm made of charcoal and bird bones in his other hand. Packing up the last of his projects before disappearing. With a weary, heavy sigh, Renji huffs at the sight of a deer-in-the-headlights Izuru. “Do I even wanna know why you knew where I lived?”

Izuru could cry with relief, but he’s pretty sure that’s not going to help him in this case. “Um.” He realizes very suddenly that he didn’t have a plan for if he made it this far. It somehow never occurred to him that he would need to actually say something. “I can explain?”

Renji rolls his eyes with no small flair of drama. He seems to loom just as much as the pine trees blanketing them from the sky. Renji couldn’t possibly have gotten even taller since he and Izuru split up, could he? Perhaps he’s filled out more. Added more brawn.

“Everybody’s meeting up by the station,” Renji says, jabbing a thumb towards the footpath behind him. “If you want a last chance t’ say goodbye… now’s your chance to do it. Rangiku already beat ya there.”

“Of course she did,” Izuru says breathlessly. He really does mean ‘everybody’, huh? Shuuhei, and Rukia, and Momo, Isane, Nanao, Ikkaku, Yumichika. Going who knows where for who knows how long.

Izuru’s throat feels dry, and he has to swallow before he tries to speak. “Renji, I–”

“Stop.” Renji interrupts him with a raised hand, then points to the stoop of the wagon that Izuru is standing on. “Sit. We’re settling this.”

Obediently, Izuru drops onto his butt with his shoulders hunched forwards and his hands clutching each other in his lap, uncontrollably tense. Renji drops his bag, letting it fall to the ground with a concerning amount of racket from within before dropping down ontop of it like a beanbag, facing Izuru dead-on. At this angle, Renji sits a little bit lower than Izuru does, which of course means they’re almost perfectly at eye-level.

Izuru isn’t sure what to do here, only that he hasn’t been chased off yet which is a significant improvement. Renji crosses his legs, then uncrosses them, then re-crosses. He folds his arms over his chest while looking down at his toes, viciously furrowed brows over a surly, tight scowl.

He looks so flummoxed, Izuru is about to risk it and try to suggest they start with some simple ‘I feel’ phrases when Renji slams his hands down on his knees.

“You really got me fucked up, Izuru. You know that?” he blurts, leaning towards Izuru like he really wants to make sure Izuru understands the full gravity he got Renji fucked up. “I mean, I was thinking you got tired of me or something. For years an’ years. And I spent all this time being so pissed at you about it, and I don’t know what to do with all this anger even though I know that none of what I thought was actually true. I just still have it, and I don’t know where to put it.”

Izuru squeezes his fist in one hand, biting his lip. He knows this already, and the guilt continues to make his stomach churn.

And yet. Stubbornly, stupidly, his brain catches on that last part and sticks like trapwire. Renji knows it wasn’t true. Renji believes him.

“I know… I know it has to be hard.” Izuru’s voice turns gentle without him meaning it to. He finds himself nervously kicking his feet in the air, and he realizes he feels young for the first time in a very long time. These butterflies in his stomach. This lightness in his head. As if he could use his powers to turn back the years to when he and Renji were kids again. “I think, maybe, some part of me just hoped that when I told you what really happened, you would just accept it like that. I wanted that, because I really wished that I never made you feel that way.”

Renji’s shoulders heave with a heavy sigh. Izuru notices he has scars that he didn’t have before, now that Izuru can see them in daylight. “I figured. But– I shouldn’t have snapped at you. For telling me.” He rubs his cheek, dark eyes not meeting Izuru’s. “I guess I was angry at myself. Because I wasted all that time hating you, instead of helping you while you were in that shitty place with that shitty person. Shit sucks, dude. It’s like we gave up on each other before we even got a chance.”

“I didn’t.” Izuru says before he can think better of it, and he stumbles over himself as Renji raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t give up on you. I wanted to keep you safe because you were precious to me. Everybody in our family was, and I couldn’t stand losing you.”

There’s heat under Izuru’s skin, and it feels like he’s burning inside. He can’t tell if he’s blushing or as pale as a ghost from nerves. “I should have told you, though. About Ichimaru.”

“Well…” Renji’s voice is a rumble, all low and thoughtful. He speaks slowly. “Maybe I should have listened better, and you wouldn’t’ve needed to tell me.”

The tension does drain a little bit out of the scene. It feels less like Izuru is trying to defuse a Renji-shaped bear trap and more like they are sitting down, having a real conversation. Being real people.

Pulling his knees up to his chest, Izuru buries his chin between his folded arms. “I wanted to come back. Every day I wanted to come back to you, but I felt like I had to clean up the mess I left behind.”

“Yeah, Shuuhei told me you said something like that,” Renji admits, kicking his heel with his toe, scuffing his sneakers and rubbing the back of his neck. “He also kinda made me realize it was dumb to try and keep him from talking to you. I shoulda listened to him a lot sooner, told him about you and everything from the start. You and I are bad at secrets.”

Despite himself, Izuru has to hide the beginnings of a smile in his sleeve. “Shuuhei is very smart.”

“And patient with stupid people like us.” This time, another gentle burst of heat spreads across Renji’s face. He’s developed a habit, Izuru notices, of playing with his fingers, and Izuru thinks Renji must have adopted it from him at some point a very long time ago. “And he likes you. A lot.”

Goodness, this really is teenaged crush butterflies all over again, isn’t it. “Renji, I– I really promise I am being honest with you, so I need to tell you the truth. I do have feelings for Shuuhei. But I also still have feelings for you.” Love. Passion. Intimacy. Those feelings have stayed with him, aging but persevering. Izuru wants them so badly. “If there was any chance, we could… “

“Yeah? Uh. Shit, Izuru. It’s just so complicated.” Renji honestly stammers, a cringe passing over his broad features. “I mean, it’d take so much time to work it all out, with me and Shuuhei and you and the Church and all. And I can’t make everyone else hold up while I try to find where my head’s at about you.”

“No, you’re right. This town is all messed up anyways, you guys should find a better place to start over.” Even though Izuru’s stomach ties itself in knots as he says that. Wouldn’t Renji be so much happier starting a new Coven somewhere else? Won’t Shuuhei be glad to be away from the prying eyes of the city, judging him for his appearances?

Renji bites his lip. His expression is very heavy on Izuru. It looks incredibly sad, from someone that Izuru is used to seeing light up with joy or rage. Sadness is too quiet and too still. “I wish none of this ever happened.”

“That’s not true. Then you never would have met Shuuhei.”

A shallow, barking laugh escapes Renji. “Alright, you got me there.”

There suddenly is a lack of things to say between them, and the silence isn’t exactly welcome but it’s not strictly uncomfortable either. Izuru hates himself for breaking it when he feels himself compelled to speak. “You have to go meet the others, don’t you?” He sounds much more miserable about it than he means to.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” With no small amount of reluctance, Renji climbs to his feet and pulls his bag up on his shoulder again. Izuru hops up to join him, not actually adding a lot of height to his stature that way. “You still wanna say goodbye to everybody? I know Rukia and Shuuhei would appreciate it a lot.”

Izuru is tempted, severely. But how much has he had his heart broken in the last handful of days? How could he stand to see these people one more time, knowing it would be the last?

He has to shake his head. “No. Believe me, I’d love to see them, but… it’d just be too hard.”

“Okay.” Renji leaves it there, and Izuru loves him for that. He loves him also, because in one impulsive moment Renji moves forward, and Izuru starts because he doesn’t know if he’s going for a kiss or if that’s too forward for what they are now. It looks like Renji isn’t certain, either.

He settles on a hug, pulling Izuru in with one arm and squeezing hard. Izuru feels the breath be crushes from his body, windless and reeling, and Renji pulls back before he can process what just happened.

“Be good, okay, Izuru. We’ll keep in touch.” Renji’s lips are twisted in a sly smirk, giving Izuru a two-fingered salute as he disappears into black shadow. The liquidy form of him ping-pongs from one patch of darkness to the next, moving faster than lighting.

Izuru’s fingers pull at his borrowed jacket, waiting for the air to return to him. In the tips of his blue fingers, he can feel the warmth where Renji’s chest was pressed against his.

Well, that’s that, then.

Now Izuru can just… what? Go back to the cathedral? He and Rangiku can go back to trying to twist the Church and get some practical use out of it. Izuru can carry on Ichimaru’s grim legacy, trying to untie the evil he left behind whenever Izuru finds it. He can wait for Renji and Shuuhei to come back to him one day.

No, he can’t.

-

They’re waiting on the train platform. Eight young adults who are too young to go but too old to stay, with their massive, patchwork luggage bound together into sandwiches by bungie cords and and suitcases with human teeth instead of zippers. Momo has the baby blue carrier of her Familiar, Snapple, on her lap while all of them wait.

Rangiku is also there, exchanging a strange, sad goodbye with Renji, and Shuuhei, but mostly Rukia. They’ve known each other very briefly and had a shocking amount in common. They all have, and it’s sad for Rangiku to lose some of the very few genuine friends she has. It isn’t fair.

Soon, there is the high-pitched shriek of a whistle, loud and distant and becoming less distant with every second. The ground underneath the Witches and the inhuman and the Knight shudders and shakes as the massive, monster shape of a train grinds to a halt, and Ikkaku and Yumichika start to carry the luggage on board while Nanao, Isane, and Momo secure their train cars.

Stubbornly, Rukia, Renji, and Shuuhei linger. Rangiku still has to deliver a bone-crushing good-bye hug to each of them. After each one, she pretends to brush her hair out of her face, when really she’s covering wet eyes. Rukia is the only one who genuinely grins. “Sure is windy on this platform, huh?”

“Oh, hush you!” Rangiku wheezes. Shuuhei leans his weight against Renji’s shoulder comfortably. This is there life now.

There’s also Izuru, taking a running leap out of the void to trip and stumble into a sprint. In a bare moment he is out of breath but he is here, doubled over with his hands on his knees, in front of everyone. This family he chose and then almost lost and then chose again.

“Izur-”

“Let me come with you!” Izuru’s voice is nearly a breathless scream, and it’s directed towards Renji and Shuuhei. His chest aches, and it’s not just with the sudden burst of adrenaline. “I mean– what if I came with you? I could help you look for Unohana and Kenpachi. They’re my family too, and I–”

_I need to. I love you. I’m ready._

Renji and Shuuhei look at each other in blatant, blunt shock. Shuuhei’s brows are high under his bangs, and Renji’s mouth hangs open. After a second of processing, Shuuhei’s expression goes from surprised to expectant, shrugging his shoulders. “Like… why not, right?”

Renji considers this for maybe a tick, looking from Shuuhei to Izuru, then waving his arm up high to get Rukia’s attention. “Hey! Can Izuru–”

“Yes! Holy fuck!” Rukia shrieks back, running at full speed towards them with an overstuffed backpack weighing her down and Rangiku making sure she doesn’t topple over. She leaps past them onto the steps of the train car. “I can’t believe I almost thought he wasn’t gonna show. Let’s get going already.”

She disappears into the train car, Rangiku helpfully raising her by the straps of her backpack to get her on board. Once her hands are free, Rangiku spins on her heels to put her hands on her hips and give Izuru a critical smirk. “This is a little short notice, huh?”

“I’ll write to you every day,” Izuru tries, but Rangiku bursts into gut-busting laughter right in his face. Her face is pink and split with a grin, all white, sharp teeth and blue sharp eyes.

“Like I’d let you go off on your own without me.” Rangiku gives Izuru a squeeze on the shoulder than might leave behind a bruise. With her other hand, she grips the door to the train car and lifts herself up into it. “I’ve done crazier stuff with you than disappearing across the world. This’ll be a cakewalk.”

That leaves Izuru with Shuuhei and with Renji. Shuuhei is the one who takes Izuru’s hand and squeezes it, pulling him up the steps. The sun is caught in his black hair, his eyes are dark and Izuru swears there is a smirk on his mangled, lopsided lips. “You’re a weird guy. You know that, right? This is gonna be really weird.”

“I like weird,” Izuru says without thinking, and Shuuhei laughs for what Izuru thinks is the first time he’s ever heard.

Izuru’s free hand feels strong, calloused fingers wrap around it, and a soft, scarred palm presses against his. Renji squeezes Izuru with their fingers interlocked, one massive hand swallowing one thin hand. “You’re sure about this, right? There’s no going back to the way things were after this.”

“Yes, I’m okay with that,” Izuru says, and pulls Renji up into the car.

He really is. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOO, BOY. There we go, ain't it? It might be a long-ass time before you see more Witch AU, but hopefully this is some nice conclusion y'all have been waiting for. Yay, happy ending!

**Author's Note:**

> WHEW! It's been a while, right?  
> Next chapter on Thursday. I hope this meets expectations and thanks to everyone who reads this for your support.


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